900 Shop Direct call centre workers made redundant

Jan 29 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

NINE hundred jobs were axed yesterday as call centre workers were given the devastating blow that their posts were being made redundant.

Staff at the Shop Direct centre in Hendon, Sunderland, were left in tears after they were told the news yesterday morning.

The company has had a presence on the Commercial Road site for over 50 years and at one point, under the Littlewoods banner, it employed 3,000 staff.

Shop Direct said a total of 1,500 workers would lose their jobs at three of its seven UK call centres with Burnley, Newtown in Wales and Sunderland all closing.

This is almost half of the company’s total call centre workforce, although it said 350 of the staff being made redundant would be offered the chance to transfer to either Worcester, Liverpool, Bolton or Preston. Shop Direct, formerly known as Littlewoods Home Shopping, say with more customers managing their own accounts on-line, calls to their contact centres had fallen from 33 million in 2005 to only 19 million today.

The GMB union said it would do everything it could during the 90-day consultation to lessen the impact of the “disastrous” news.

Northern regional officer Mick Hopper said: “This has come as a massive shock to the staff. Just last week staff were doing overtime and working round the clock shifts.

“This site has been part of Littlewoods for over 50 years. At one time it employed 3,000 people in manufacturing and retail.

“It was terrible to stand in that room this morning and see men and women crying. Whole families work here.