According to the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), UK manufacturing output in November was flat on the previous month, although it was still down 5.4% on the previous year.

The latest ONS figures came as manufacturers' organisation EEF predicted an average growth of 1.2% for the manufacturing sector as a whole, which it claimed would face a "muted recovery" that would likely include further casualties.

EEF chief economist Lee Hopley said: "Last year was a record year for all the wrong reasons and the outlook for the UK economy this year is far from certain, with little momentum behind a recovery until the latter part of the year."

Tom Lawton, head of manufacturing at BDO, added that some key manufacturing sectors would continue to suffer the effects of the global slowdown and global competition at least in the early part of 2010.

"Manufacturers will need to continue to implement cost-cutting measures, including staff reductions, to maintain profits in what will continue to be a very challenging market," he said.

"In addition, the lack of access to credit will continue to cause major headaches for many manufacturers – in particular as the growth phase begins to place increasing demands on working capital. I have concerns that the early period of 2010 could prove very difficult and possibly fatal for some manufacturers."

Meanwhile, professor Phil Whyman of the University of Central Lancashire, economics adviser to the Forum of Private Business, warned that large reductions in public sector spending, coupled with rises in taxation, would cause more pain for industries and companies supplying the public sector.

He added that recovery in 2010 would be slow, "due to faltering in international markets, with the recovery in the export-orientated economies of Japan and Germany looking fragile, and thereby preventing the depreciation in sterling delivering the significant stimulus to British trade that might be expected in a 'normal' period".