British Gas set to cut 684 jobs in its services operations and close its Oldbury office
British Gas, owned by multinational Centrica, has launched a consultation on whether to close its Oldbury office, putting 684 jobs at risk.
The review is part of a plan announced by Centrica in July last year to cut 6,000 jobs by 2017, bringing its headcount down by a net of 4,000.
The consultation is expected to last 45 days and if confirmed British Gas has said it would look to redeploy staff from the West Midlands office where it can.
In the year to date British Gas has announced 800 job cuts as part of its efficiency plan, announced earlier this week in a trading update. Up to 3,000 jobs are expected to be axed at the company this year.
Read more: Centrica boss avoids BP-style defeat over pay packet
Claire Miles, managing director of customer operations, said:
We are planning to consolidate our activity on fewer sites, and we have made the difficult decision to propose closing our Oldbury office and call centre. I recognise that today’s announcement represents difficult news for our employees who may be affected. Our priority now is to support all those potentially impacted, and to ensure a fair and transparent consultation process, working with our people and their representatives.
It was also revealed in the trading update that Centrica lost 224,000 residential customers in the first three months of the year as households switched providers, accounting for 1.5 per cent of Centrica's domestic customers and reducing total residential accounts to 14.4m.
Read more: CMA wants energy price cap for pre-payment meters
British Gas is still the UK's largest domestic gas supplier but competitors are gaining ground.