SOME portworkers are being paid around �500 a week to sit at home doing nothing, it was revealed today.

SOME portworkers are being paid around �500 a week to sit at home doing nothing, it was revealed today.

Dozens of the workers at Felixstowe - known as “floaters” - were brought in to be on call for when the container terminal was extremely busy and needed extra quayside workers at a moment's notice.

Recession has caused a steep downturn in the port's workload, leaving some of the workers sat at home being paid but with very few shifts to work.

Port bosses say recent voluntary redundancies have enabled them to switch many of the floaters to fixed contracts and there are now very few of them left on call.