POWER tools firm Black and Decker is axing more jobs in a bid to cut costs. The Spennymoor, County Durham operation has plans to cut about 12 administrative posts by the end of this month.

The job losses are the latest at the plant, following 100 redundancies in March. However, those losses were made up of people who volunteered for redundancy, and compulsory losses were avoided.

The US firm is looking for volunteers for its latest round of redundancies among its white collar staff, but will make them compulsory if no volunteers come forward.

The company was quick to deny that the latest redundancies had been caused by plans to move more production to China.

It claims that any work transferred to its Suzhou plant in China will be replaced by higher value, higher specification tools.

A spokesman for Black and Decker said: "In order to realign our costs for professional product manufacture, we have issued a voluntary redundancy notice that will affect approximately 12 of our office-based staff.

"We shall review the number of volunteers coming forward before making any compulsory redundancies. Any personnel affected will be informed by the end of November."

He added: "All the work that is being transferred to China is being replaced with other products." The plant, which does not recognise a union, employs more than 2,000 full and part time staff making De Walt power tools for the professional market.

The brand was brought in as a higher value replacement for the Black and Decker brand of tools being moved to China.

About half of the staff employed at the plant are agency workers who are employed at peak times of production.

The De Walt brand has replaced the former Black and Decker range of drills and power tools manufactured at the plant, which are sold in DIY stores across the UK

Many of those former products have been moved to its Chinese factory, where they can be produced at a cheaper cost.

The De Walt professional range of tools was brought in to the Spennymoor plant as part of an £18m investment. But it was at the expense of its Italian operation, which was closed.