Marconi workers in Chelmsford and Basildon are on tenterhooks again as the troubled telecoms group announced it will axe a further 1,000 jobs in the UK.

The company is aiming to cut 4,000 jobs worldwide in order to claw back £200m.

Of the cuts, 25 per cent will be in the UK, 25 per cent in the US and the remainder throughout the rest of the world.

The group said it did not know yet which of its sites would be affected by the latest cuts but union officials said they feared many of the jobs would be lost at factories in Liverpool and at Ansty near Coventry.

Bill Pigram, representative of the Amicus union, said he was hopeful Essex would escape the cuts.

He said: "There is not a lot left that they can take away from us down here. The losses will mainly affect factories in Liverpool and Coventry so they are now getting a taste of what we have experienced down here.

"We have written to Marconi's chief executive and asked for a meeting with him regarding the lack of previous consultation and information on who will be the new owner of Marconi Applied Technologies."

The group has slashed thousands of jobs since it first warned of falling demand last July. Once the latest round of cuts are completed, Marconi will employ between 7,000 and 8,000 people in its core business in the UK. That figure was 12,000 in April 2001.

The Chelmsford sites alone lost 175 jobs last year.

But, Marconi today said it was on track to achieve its targeted reduced cost base.

Chief executive Mike Parton said: "The third quarter outcome shows good progress towards our debt and cost reduction targets against a background of a difficult market.

"It is with regret that we have announced the need for further cost and job reduction we are all the more determined not to be dependent on improvement in the market to return the group to profitability."

Published Tuesday January 15, 2002