AA to shed 100 UK jobs

The AA motoring organisation gave a warning today that it planned to cut 100 jobs as part of a restructuring of two insurance-based call centres in the UK.

The AA – owned by two private equity firms following a £1.75bn (€2.6bn) takeover in October – said the job losses at Newcastle and Cardiff involved mainly management and administrative roles.

It is looking to save about £12m (€17.7m) a year from the restructuring of the centres, which is being linked to an £8m (€11.8m) investment in new technology and telephone systems. As well as the 100 job cuts, savings are expected from normal staff turnover among the 1,650-strong joint workforce.

The group, which is the UK’s biggest car and home insurance broker with some two million customers, said the moves reflected a competitive market but added that it would not be following rival insurers in transferring work to India.

Kevin Sinclair, managing director of AA Insurance, said the company had “seriously considered” a move overseas as it would have delivered long-term savings estimated at £24m (€35.4m).

He added: “The insurance market has become very competitive, so it’s vital we reduce costs and improve efficiency.”

Staff were told of the plans today and full consultation with the AA’s recognised trade union – the AA Democratic Union – has begun.

The company said it was looking for voluntary redundancies over the coming weeks and that the first posts would disappear in November. It has 1,000 staff in Newcastle and about 650 in Cardiff.

The AA recently announced that a site in England at Maidstone in Kent, which employs 154 staff answering emergency breakdown calls, will close, while work will transfer from Basingstoke in Hampshire, which deals with administration, to Cheadle, leading to some 129 job losses.