The warning has been issued by Ulysses IT, in reaction to a new survey of workers.

Security vendor Cyber-Ark found that half of IT staff would look for information that could be used against the company if they were fired.

Data that could be stolen included confidential corporate information, customer databases and passwords.

46 per cent would go looking for a redundancy list if there were rumours of job cuts.

Director Paula Backen says that data security is something that must be considered an essential part of the preparation for cutting jobs: "The modern technology which makes it easy to share data and information anywhere also makes it easy to steal. It can take just a few minutes for an entire database that has taken years to build to be copied to a CD or data pen.

"Any business with employees should have basic security in place to make it hard for staff to copy data they have no right to. And in the event of job losses, access should be limited and passwords changed immediately.

"It may seem cold to cut someone's computer access rights as soon as you have made them redundant, but you must consider how you would feel if your data fell into a competitors' hands."

Ulysses IT provides computer support for manufacturers across the UK.

Established in 1998, the business operates as an outsourced IT department for clients, mostly on a pay-as-you go basis.