Contract employees of Imperial Tobacco have been advised that at least 40 of them will be made redundant by April 1 due to a reduction in workload by the tobacco giant.
The move, which comes ahead of next summer's smoking ban in public places, was announced as contract field employees were asked to attend a meeting in February. Shortly afterwards staff employed by subcontractor Trinity Executives were told in a letter that "due to a proposed reduction in our volume of work, we are proposing to dismiss as redundant 40 employees".
It went on: "It is proposed to make some positions of HoReCa (Hotel/Restaurant/Café) sales representatives redundant. Therefore, I regret to advise you that you are at risk of redundancy."