British Gas owner confirms 1,300 jobs to go at six centres

Jobs in Wales will be cut as part the restructuring

British Gas owner Centrica has announced that it will be cutting around 1,300 jobs including within call centres in Wales. The job cuts come as the company recorded an earnings decrease in its half-year report.

The workforce reduction totals around 14% of the customer operations team as Centrica announced a ‘customer service transformation’ scheme last month. Five hundred call centre roles will be cut including many in Cardiff as well as in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leicester, Stockport and Leeds.

A further 800 roles are being cut from support functions across the business.

A spokesman for Centrica said: “We have been transforming the business for a number of years to ensure we have the right roles in the right places for the future. This means making changes to improve efficiency, drive commercial performance and give our customers the service they want.

“At the same time, we continue to invest in the skills where there is demand, including recruiting more engineers to meet growing demand and hiring 500 apprentices this year alone.”

The GMB union has made accusations that the 500 call centre roles being cut will be replaced by AI technology, however Centrica has called these claims “simply wrong”.

Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national secretary, said: “It’s an absolute disgrace British Gas is slashing hundreds of human jobs and giving them to chatbots.

“These staff are massively overworked and underpaid, yet do their level best to keep customers happy. Now, instead of being rewarded, they’re being replaced by artificial intelligence.”