A QUESTION mark is hanging over the future of 78 workers at a County Durham depot.

Retail group Dixons yesterday confirmed it was cutting jobs at 17 UK distribution centres, including one at Newton Aycliffe.

The group intends to lay off 400 workers out of 2,400, but said it could not yet give a breakdown for each centre.

There was further bad news as cement company Cemex warned up to 150 jobs could be slashed from its operations across the North-East.

The group bought Ready Mix Concrete (RMC) this year and plans to lay off 750 of its 7,000-strong UK workforce.

RMC's regional head office is in Durham. Elsewhere in the county, it has bases at Birtley, Newton Aycliffe and two at Peterlee. On Teesside, it has two operations in Billingham, three in Hartlepool, one in Middlesbrough and four in Stockton.

A spokeswoman said the cuts would reflect a ten per cent reduction across the board. Only its call centre in Thornaby, Stockton, which employs 170 staff, would not be affected.

The cuts by Dixons are part of an overhaul of its distribution system that will see two central depots established. Newton Aycliffe will become one of 12 smaller operations, described as "out-bases".

A Dixons spokeswoman said: "We will still need operations in Newton Aycliffe.

"We are not forecasting that there will be significant job losses."

The overhaul is part of cost savings of £30m planned for this year, as Dixons prepares for tougher trading conditions in the UK.

The group, which also owns the Currys, Link and PC World chains, yesterday announced an eight per cent dip in annual pre-tax profits, which came in at £336.8m.

It said the previous set of results had been inflated by one-off items, and this year's like-for-like sales were up two per cent.

In the UK business, operating profits fell nine per cent, as a three per cent rise in sales to £4.82bn was offset by weaker margins.

Currys sales grew six per cent and PC World sales rose 11 per cent, but Dixons saw a 14 per cent decline.

The company, which also owns businesses on the Continent, such as PC City, also announced a name change.

Its corporate name will become DSG International, which stands for Dixons Stores Group.