The latest state of the jobs market will be revealed on 18 January with new unemployment figures against a backdrop of increasingly gloomy predictions of redundancies.
Analysts expect the latest data will show another rise from last month's figure of 2.6m amid predictions that the jobless total will not fall below 2.5m until 2016 at the earliest and will peak at 2.9m next year.
The Federation of Small Businesses warned that smaller firms will look to shed staff in the first three months of the year, adding that the government should be "bolder" in its changes to employment law, including exempting micro firms from proposals on pay audits.
A survey of over 1,600 FSB members showed that around one in 13 planned to lay off workers in the coming months.
FSB chairman John Walker said: "The beginning of 2012 is beginnning to look bleak, with confidence incredibly low and businesses looking to shed staff. However, things do not need to be so negative. If the government makes the right choices and puts action into words we can turn this around.
"Tinkering and increasing existing employment laws will only serve to worsen this situation, but by putting simple measures in place, such as excluding micro firms from the right to request flexible working for all, will help free businesses from the shackle of red tape so they can grow, innovate and take on new staff."
The TUC has warned that the prospects of finding a job are likely to get "much worse" in the face of fresh cuts in public spending this year.
With forecasts of more than 700,000 jobs set to be axed by the end of 2017, the TUC said it will be even harder for the unemployed to get back into the labour market.
Unemployment will not fall below 2.5m until 2016 at the earliest and will peak at 2.9m next year, John Philpott, chief economic advisor of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, has predicted.
He forecast that the UK's jobless rate will jump to 8.8% at the end of 2013 amid continuing cuts in the public sector.
Up to 20 jobseekers are chasing every vacancy in parts of the country, five times the national average, according to a study by the think tank IPPR North.
Network Rail said that one in four university graduates who left university in the past two years had turned down a job offer because they were overqualified.
Almost half of 450 graduates surveyed said they found it difficult to narrow down the type of job they were looking for.