Kier Group said on Friday it would axe around 350 staff, or 60 percent of workers in its residential division, the latest construction firm to announce job cuts due to a housing market slump.

The construction, house building and maintenance company said in a trading update it would close four of its five residential division offices, as visitor levels and home reservations continued to fall during the second half.

"We are very cautious on the outlook for 2009 and consequently we are taking appropriate action to reduce our cost base," the company said in a statement.

Companies reliant on the construction industry, from builders like Barratt Developments and Taylor Wimpey to plumbing-equipment distributor Wolseley, have cut thousands of jobs in recent weeks as tighter lending by banks and falling consumer confidence has sparked a sharp slowdown in house purchases.

Kier said its order book to end-June was down 45 percent on the previous year and home completions for the year are down almost 19 percent to 1,438 homes.

Full-year pretax profit would be in line with analysts' expectations, however, it added.

Landsbanki analyst David Phillips left his pretax profit estimate unchanged at 86.1 million pounds, compared with the 77.6 million pounds reported the year before.

"Given the ongoing deterioration in the residential housing and commercial property markets, we think this is represents an extremely creditable outcome and demonstrates the strength of Kier's balanced, cash-rich business model," he said

The company said it continued to see little evidence of a slowdown in its other markets of construction and support services, both of which continue to perform strongly and have record order books.

At 8:20 a.m., Kier shares were down 2.1 percent at 891.5 pence, valuing the firm at about 296 million pounds.