29.01.10 E.ON to axe 800 jobs

800 jobs are to go at E.ON, one of the biggest energy companies in the UK. The jobs are to go at a call centre in Rayleigh in Essex which is set to be closed completely.

The German owners of E.ON, which currently serves 5.5 million UK customers, said that the decision had “not being taken lightly”, but that the closure was necessary in order to improve efficiency across the whole group.

The plan now is to create new ‘centres of excellence’, and the energy giant confirmed that the restructuring could actually lead to lots of new jobs being created in other areas of the country. It has confirmed that it will be allowing some of the call centre staff to relocate, whilst some will be offered voluntary redundancy instead.

In addition to the call centre closure, the company also announced that a further 200 staff are to be affected by an overhaul of the IT operations. 75 jobs will be affected in the IT support sector, with a further 125 going in the Energy Services Business.

E.ON currently employs 16,000 workers across Britain, but as an international company it employs a total of 90,000 staff worldwide.

The managing director of the retail arm of E.ON, Graham Bartlett, said that the company understood the effect of the decision on the employees, but added that “the fact of the matter is that our retail business has only just returned to profit after years of loss-making”

The trade union Unison, however, wants government intervention following the decision. The general secretary, Dave Prentis, said that it will come as “a bitter blow and a terrible shock to call centre workers at E.ON.”

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