A COMPANY in the North-East which provides car parts for the motor industry has become the latest victim of the economic downturn - announcing it is cutting 300 jobs from its production line.

Managers at the Wearside-based Unipres - which provides parts predominantly to the neighbouring Nissan plant - said the global downturn and drop in people buying new cars had hit the company hard.

Nissan sent thousands of workers home five days earlier than expected over Christmas in response to the downturn in sales across Europe.

Unipres told all of its 200 temporary workers before Christmas they would no longer be needed in the New Year - and now says it wants to make a further 96 full-time staff redundant.

A spokesman for the company said: "We're affected pretty much the same as everyone else in the industry.

"We are expecting a significant downturn in sales this year and we are having to adjust our manpower accordingly.

"Unfortunately, that is what we need to do to survive."

The company is looking for voluntary redundancies at first but may have to make some compulsory redundancies if volunteers are not found.

The spokesman added: "Obviously we have communicated the situation to our employees on several occasions and they are well aware of the situation faced by the company.

"They know we are doing all we can to keep things going over a really difficult period."

Staff at the plant are being represented by the Union Unite, as consultation with management over redundancy packages begin.

Unite spokesman Brian Cole said the first redundancy would take effect on January 31. He added, the company was looking to make the last redundancy by April 30.

Consultation started on December 22 with union representatives at the plant and a first meeting is expected to take place next week.

Staff at Nissan who returned to work on Monday, were sent home earlier than expected over Christmas after a shock shutdown on December 9.

Production of the Qashqai, Note and Micra resumed for four days from December 15, before the plant closed early for the festive season.

Nissan's Sunderland plant is the UK's biggest and most productive plant. Since it opened ion 1986, more than five million cars have been made there. Last year, 353,000 vehicles rolled off the production lines.