MOBILE phone group Vodafone last night confirmed plans to close a call centre, putting 650 jobs at risk.
The company's Birmingham site will close in February, with work transferring to other centres.
Union officials criticised the move, saying that for months, staff suspected the site was likely to close, but had been told nothing.
Vodafone UK consumer customer management director Jane Hext said: "Our customers expect the best service at the lowest cost in this very competitive market."
A spokesman for Connect, which represents Vodafone employees, said: "For a communications company, when it comes to talking to staff about changes, Vodafone has been surprisingly silent."
Rival Orange, which employs thousands of people in call centres across the North-East, has outsourced some of its services to a company in India, leading to fears for UK jobs.
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