A North-East manufacturer last night threw a jobs lifeline to dozens of workers when it dramatically reduced the number of workers it plans to make redundant.

Car parts company TKA Tallent, formerly Tallent Engineering, announced last month it was to shed 94 jobs at its factory in Newton Aycliffe.

But last night, managing director Simon Flunder confirmed talks during the past week with unions GMB and Amicus had led to the redundancies being reduced to 50.

He said a "significant amount" of the job losses were voluntary redundancies.

Gerry Hunter, regional organiser with the Amicus engineering union, said talks with Tallent had "dramatically reduced" the number of workers being made redundant.

This was partly as a result of radical changes to shift patterns, he said.

Mr Hunter said that it was good news in the wake of recent job cuts in Darlington and County Durham.

The job cuts are being blamed on a global downturn in orders in the automotive industry.

But Mr Flunder said: "We are very pleased, obviously, that jointly with our union shop stewards, we have been able to reduce the effect of the issue.

"We are in the automotive industry and it has been affected by a global downturn. We have just got to see how the situation develops. Obviously we can't make any promises but we are hopeful of the situation getting better in the long term."