WORKERS at a Lloyds TSB call centre were last night told the centre will close by the end of November.

The contact centre, in Newcastle, is closing with the loss of nearly 1,000 jobs as Lloyds opens a centre in Mumbai, India, employing 1,500 staff.

The Lloyds TSB Group Union (LTU) last night said that despite the bank's efforts to redeploy staff since the closure was announced last October, nearly half of the staff affected had not found alternative jobs. The LTU also said there had been complaints by customers about the new Mumbai call centre.

Steve Tatlow, assistant general secretary at LTU, said: "The bank's commitment to offer all staff an alternative job is a smokescreen - the job neither has to be suitable or even within the North-East.

"We are pressing Lloyds TSB to stop turning a deaf ear to its customers and to put customer satisfaction at the centre of its strategy, rather than being seduced by the opportunity to cut costs."

But a Lloyds TSB spokeswoman said: "The Mumbai call centre has only been open for a few days so I don't see how there can have been countless complaints already."

"We have agreed with Unifi, the other union representing Newcastle call centre workers, that any member of staff who has not found alternative employment or taken voluntary redundancy by November, we will redeploy them.

"We are also offering education allowances of up to £2,000 for workers wanting to retrain, on top of redundancy money. We have already managed to find 200 workers jobs elsewhere and 300 have left of their own accord.

"The reason we chose Newcastle for closure is because there are other call centres there where our staff could find jobs."