A JOBS boost for the Tees Valley will not be as big as was anticipated.

Call centre operator nvisage has confirmed a recruitment drive that will take numbers of people employed at a new operation on Teesside to at least 230. But it said reports of 500 extra jobs were too optimistic.

The customer services division of Innogy, new owner of Northern Electric and Gas, is looking to have 230 telesales and customer services staff in place at Northern Electric's site in Thornaby within the next year.

The new site will be a sister operation to nvisage's existing centre on the Bracken Hill Business Park, in Peterlee, which already employs more than 500 staff.

In November last year, nvisage started a recruitment drive to take on the first 100 staff for the Thornaby centre.

Now it plans to add another 130 staff to the operation as more work is transferred to it, at the expense of call centres outside the region.

An existing operation in Bradford is due to close once the Peterlee and Thornaby centres are up and running.

All the staff at the Bradford operation have been given the chance to transfer to the new call centres.

The jobs will be in the same building as the Northern Electric and Gas operation, in Thornaby.

The new positions will handle calls from across the Innogy group, rather than just the existing Northern Electric business, which at the moment is run by a staff of temporary workers.

A spokesman for Innogy said these workers would be given first choice as to whether they wanted to transfer to permanent full-time positions.

He said: "The new nvisage jobs will be mostly covering telesales and customer service work from across the Innogy group, rather than supporting the Northern Electric business.

"The exception to this is the expected transfer to nvisage of Northern Electric and Gas telesales activity currently supported entirely by temporary staff, some of whom may consider taking permanent positions with nvisage as a result of the changes."

About 100 Northern Electric and Gas customer service operatives work at the Thornaby site, with about 65 of those on temporary or agency contracts.