Mayo telecommunications firm "has too many employees"

A leading telecommunications company in Co Mayo has indicated that it has up to 100 employees too many for the current level of business.

Management at Volex in Castlebar informed staff that the present markets cannot sustain the 605-strong workforce.

Managing director, John Corcoran says that staff and union officials are examining what options are open to the company.

"On Tuesday we announced to our employees here that we were carrying about 82 to 100 empoloyees too many," he explained, "however, we were not making a job cut announcement at that stage.

"We were hoping to enter a two week period where we can have discussions to try and work on solutions that might offset the level of losses that we have talked about.

"At the moment we are exploring every avenue of opportunity int erms of working weeks, working patterns, shift patterns that might ultimately offset the fact that we are carrying too many."