Energy supplier E.On have confirmed that they will go ahead with plans to close their call centre in Rayleigh Essex, following a 90 day consultation period with Union officials from Unison.
The closure scheduled for June, will mean the loss of 600 jobs and is the third announcement to close a call centre in the area this year.
The company says that it wants to streamline its customer service operations by creating ‘centres of exellence’ elsewhere in the UK.
E.On added that they would offer relocation packages to some of the staff at Rayleigh and hoped that others would take voluntary redundancy, but Unison said that only 20 to 40 of the current staff would be in a position to relocate.
It is difficult to understand why the call centre has to be relocated without knowing the full story, as Unison said a call centre can be run from anywhere so why not Rayleigh?
But back in January when the announcement was first made, Graham Bartlett, managing director of E.On’s retail business, said: “The decision to close the Rayleigh site was not a move that we’ve taken lightly. But the fact of the matter is that our retail business has only just returned to profit after years of loss-making and, to ensure we can continue to do that, we have to make these tough choices.
E.On also confirmed a further 200 job losses across the UK in the IT support and energy services sectors.
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