LOSING a major contract is one of the reasons why 97 jobs are to go at an Ipswich video production company, The Evening Star can reveal today.As reported in The Star last week, there were fears that jobs were in jeopardy at Cinram UK, based in Bluestem Road, Ransomes Europark.

LOSING a major contract is one of the reasons why 97 jobs are to go at an Ipswich video production company, The Evening Star can reveal today.

As reported in The Star last week, there were fears that jobs were in jeopardy at Cinram UK, based in Bluestem Road, Ransomes Europark.

The company has continually declined to make any formal comment about the situation but an inside source has revealed the death knell had already sounded earlier this year.

There were fears that half of Cinram's 213 staff were in danger of losing their jobs when the contract with Universal, the Vivendi-owned company was not renewed several weeks ago. The lost contract represented 70 per cent of its output and at that time 21 jobs were axed.

Production had already been hit by the upward trend in the public buying DVDs in favour of VHS video cassettes – Cinram UK's main output – and this was the deciding factor in making 65 further redundancies.

These losses plus the 21 already gone earlier this year and others through natural wastage brings the total to 97 which are scheduled to go by June 9, claimed the source.

It is understood that the first reaction of management was to change working hours from staffing the plant round the clock with four shifts to working Monday to Friday with just two shifts.

"Then they changed their minds, decided to make 21 people redundant and keep everyone else on tenterhooks, which they did," claimed the insider.

"One week later they decided they had to now make another 65 people redundant which was announced last week," it was added.

When all the planned jobs have been axed the company will reduce its working pattern to a two-shift system.

The Ipswich division is part of Cinram International Inc., which is one of the world's largest independent providers of pre-recorded multimedia products and logistic services.

With facilities in North America and Europe, Cinram manufactures and distributes pre-recorded DVDs, VHS video cassettes, audio CDs, music cassettes and CD-ROMs for motion picture studios, music labels, publishers and computer software companies around the world.

The job losses come after Cinram Inc announced record levels of revenue for the year ending December 31, 2002.