Siemens denies plans to axe 40 jobs from South Tyneside plant

Te firm has denied reports that around 40 jobs could be lost next month at its South Tyneside plant.

It said the claim, circulating among the company’s Hebburn workforce, was entirely false.

Instead, bosses say twenty jobs had been saved from planned cuts of around 170 posts it announced at the plant in January.

They said they had been able to reassign the employees – some of whom worked on the now-ended Thames Link project – to permanent posts at the site.

They also confirmed a review of their operations in South Tyneside, also announced in January, had yet to be completed.

A spokesman for the German-owned business said: “There is no truth to these claims of job losses.

“In fact, we have managed to reallocate twenty people who were originally among those who were to lose their jobs. These are permanent reassignments.

“This shows that we are doing everything we can to help our employees and to try to win as much business as possible.

“Our review is ongoing and is still a long way off being completed.”

In January Siemens announced two separate rounds of job losses at Hebburn.

It first revealed 58 employees would lose their posts, due to changes to the customer service side of the company.

As part of the same redundancies, another 15 losses were earmarked for Hebburn and at Garforth, Leeds.

Days later it confirmed it expected to shed another 113 jobs in Hebburn.

The firm said these were employees working on a temporary basis and their work was ending due to several contracts coming to a close.

Siemens insisted they were working via a recruitment firm on time-specific projects, and that their work is now being wound down.

The job cuts prompted MP Stephen Hepburn, whose Jarrow constituency includes Hebburn, to meet with Siemens to discuss its future in South Tyneside.

In the same statement, Siemens confirmed its Siemens Power Generation Services business in Newcastle was looking for applications for voluntary redundancy.

Bosses said this followed significant market challenges and fundamental changes to the UK’s fossil-power generation market.

At the start of the year the firm employed 432 people at Hebburn and 2,000 in total in the North East.