A BT directory inquiries centre based in Durham City is due to close with the loss of 120 jobs.
The Durham centre handling calls to the 192 service, is among five in England and Scotland being axed by the telecommunications firm.
Its 120 staff, of whom 63 are employed by BT and 57 by agencies, were informed of the closure last Friday. The BT workers will have the chance to relocate to Sunderland or Middlesbrough, being retrained for new departments, or to take voluntary redundancy, while the agencies will be responsible for finding their staff other jobs.
Along with the Durham branch, BT centres in Leamington Spa, Hemmel Hempstead, Irvine and Glasgow, offering operator and international directory inquiries services, as well as 192, are also closing. The Durham centre is expected to shut by June 29.
A spokesman for BT said the move was unavoidable due to a fall in demand for call centre services. "A lot of it is to do with the downturn in the number of calls due to customers moving to alternative providers like the Internet and using mobile phones."
The closures follow that of the Darlington call centre and the operator centre in Newcastle, last year, and the directory inquiries centre in Gateshead, two years ago.
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