Jobs gloom worsens

11:54am Thursday 8th January 2009

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ANOTHER bleak day for North-East workers has left 265 more people facing the dole queue.

Most of the 180 staff at furniture company Europa Sofabeds, on Heighington Lane Business Park, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, have been made redundant.

Administrators at the firm, which makes sofas and sofabeds, had been unable to salvage the business, which they said could not be sold as a going concern.

Garlands Call Centres also announced yesterday that it would close its Preston Farm site, in Stockton, in March, with up to 90 redundancies.

Europa Sofabeds staff returned to work on Monday, after the Christmas break, to be told the business had gone into administration on December 29.

Yesterday, a spokesman for administrators Begbies Traynor said: “The fall of the business is down to the increase in cost of raw materials – it is pound versus euro basically.

“They are also owed significant sums of money by some customers.”

He said the company employed 180 staff and 175, including the directors, had been made redundant.

One worker at the plant said that many of his colleagues were surprised that the company, a major supplier to Argos, had been in difficulty.

He said: “It seemed to be running okay and the company was doing overtime right up until Christmas.

“We seemed to have the orders, but the company must have been struggling.

“The administrators said the costs we had meant we were not making enough money.

“Everyone is gutted, there were a lot of tears about.”

Garlands Call Centres, which employs 3,000 people in the North-East, said it would close its Preston Farm site after Vodafone withdrew from one of its operations with the firm.

Following a review, account and service management duties performed by Garlands will now be carried out by Vodafone.

Employees have been told the number of redundancies is likely to be between 80 and 90 and that the Preston Farm operations will be moved to other Garlands sites in mid to late March.

The company’s chief executive, Chey Garland, who started the business in 1987, said: “We have been informed that the move is no reflection on the quality of work delivered by Garlands’ dedicated teams, which continues to be received favorably.

“Garlands will be starting a consultation process with employees affected by the change in the next few days.”

She added: “It is important to stress that account and service management is just one area in which Garlands supports its long-standing client, and that we have received assurances from Vodafone that other service areas – credit and risk, telesales, and Pay As You Talk – will be unaffected by the change.”