MOBILE phone group Orange is the latest UK employer to send call centre work to India, it was revealed last night.

News of the switch has prompted concerns for the security of the 5,500 Orange jobs in the North-East.

The company insisted there was no threat to its existing call centre sites at Darlington, Peterlee and North Tyneside.

But a spokesman for the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which has several hundred members working for Orange, said: "This is a worrying development, particularly as other companies within the telecoms sector have also announced that they intend to explore the possibility of exporting jobs from the UK."

According to the CWU, 28 companies have transferred more than 50,000 jobs serving UK customers to India over the past two years.

The union fears an increasing number of businesses will move call centre work to India, making savings of about 40 per cent.

The region was rocked last year by news that Lloyds TSB was to scrap 980 jobs by moving its Tyneside call centre work to India.

National Rail Enquiries also announced jobs were to go at its centre on Tyneside, and Norwich Union, which employs 4,000 people in the North, has plans to export jobs to Asia.

A further 50 staff at the Darlington branch of Axa Insurance are to lose their jobs after the company switched work to Bangalore, in India.

The CWU spokesman said: "The CWU is campaigning against outsourcing to India because we believe that this is taking away jobs from areas of high unemployment and predominantly feminine workplaces.

"It is not a question of taking a nationalist stance, but many of the big call centres were set up - often with the support of public money - in areas known for high unemployment and low salaries.

"Orange and the other telecoms companies provide good conditions for their staff and the loss of any employment would be a severe blow."

Last night, Orange confirmed it was sub-contracting to call centre specialist Vertex.

A company statement said: "We are considering having a small proportion of our customer calls handled by a third party based in the UK who will use both their UK and offshore capacity starting in the middle of 2004.

"This initiative is to allow Orange to handle the varying levels of customer services activity flexibly.

"The redirection of calls to customer services abroad will not result in any redundancies."

Vertex is one of a number of companies Orange uses to outsource work.

A spokeswoman for Orange said: "We outsource calls for a variety of reasons and at particular times of the year.

"For example, we get a lot of new mobile phone users at Christmas.

"We have a major training programme across our centres and we use outsourcing to free up people to do that."

It is understood that Graeme Nixon, Orange's director of customer relations, has made a number of trips to India recently to assess Vertex's operations.

Vertex signed a multi-million pound deal with Orange last November to carry out a range of work including activating accounts for new mobile phone owners.

It employs 9,000 staff worldwide, including 900 at a call centre in Gurgaon, India