interesting stat the amount of people employed in the public sector rose by 250000 in Q4 2008

thats one hell of an increase for just one quarter (though this is due to the classification of the nationalised banks)

and now employs 6.051 million people. The private sector employs 23.109 million people. Over 20% of the work force is payed by the state.
@dogbert
London 782000
North west 690000
South east 684000
Scotland 606000 and on
only NI has less public sector workers than the north east.