IPSWICH workers have been struck another body blow today with the fear that up to 100 jobs could be moved abroad, The Evening Star revealed today.Some of the 230 employees of the More Th>n call centre, could be among 100 across the country to be "outsourced" abroad.

IPSWICH workers have been struck another body blow today with the fear that up to 100 jobs could be moved abroad, The Evening Star revealed today.

Some of the 230 employees of the More Th>n call centre, could be among 100 across the country to be "outsourced" abroad.

The news came as part of Royal & Sun Alliance latest cutbacks. The firm, which last year axed 1,000 jobs, today said it intends to cut 1,000 more jobs across the country.

Its More Th>n call centres employ 1,600 nationwide, including 230 at the Ipswich offices on the corner of Museum Street and Princes Street.

A company spokeswoman told The Evening Star that "outsourcing" the jobs did not mean redundancies as such because the employees would be re-deployed to another company.

Royal & Sun Alliance is believed to be already planning to pilot a new call centre facility for More Th>n – possibly in India – with about 100 staff. The spokeswoman would not confirm this destination would be part of the outsourcing of Ipswich jobs.

She said: "Nothing is definite about any of the jobs from anywhere across the UK and the Ipswich jobs may not be affected.

"But where the jobs are outsourced they will have a new employer and this will be off-shore. "These changes will not take effect until 2004 and we hope that natural staff turnover will reduce the numbers of enforced change."

A similar process announced earlier this year saw staff from its UK life and pensions arm, now closed to new business, transferred to another operator. Areas likely to be affected by today's move include property and facilities management operations.

Roger Lyons, joint general secretary of Amicus, said: "We will be working with the company every step of the way to ensure that these jobs do not go outside the UK."