EMPLOYEES at a manufacturing firm where 100 people are to be made redundant have spoken of their feelings about the decision.

Your Worcester News reported yesterday that Morganite Crucible, part of the Morgan Crucible Company, was to transfer some manufacturing to India and Germany.

As a result, the organisation, which employs about 140 people at Norton, near Worcester, will make 100 redundancies by the end of the year.

All the workers we spoke to wished to remain anonymous.

One production worker has been employed at the site, in Woodbury Lane, for 26 years. He expects to be made redundant in April or May this year. "It is nothing out of the blue because they bought the ground in India seven or eight years ago," he said. "I am quite pleased about it, I was going to pack up when I was 60 so it is only six months early.

"Morale is pretty good, there are some of the younger ones who need a job, and they will have to find another job, but the older people are not to bothered about it."

Furnace production and distribution will continue to be based at the Norton site, although the production worker does not think it will stay there for long. "I give it 18 months and it is going, that is what we have heard," he said.

Another employee has been told he will not lose his job. "My job has been saved," he said. "But I feel manufacturing in this country is going down the pan and it will not be long before I am on the dole and looking for a job."

A toolsetter at Morgan Crucible who is being made redundant said: "I have been in engineering for 31 years, when are this government going to stop British manufacturing jobs leaking abroad, loosing unique skills forever?

"This has been a major blow to all the workforce. With the prospects of trying to live on minimum wage or just above, which seems the only jobs available at present in this area, it is going to be a long hard road ahead."

The company, which produces crucibles and foundry products, said the rise of the pound against the dollar and the Japanese yen had affected profitability. It also cited increased competition from Asia as another reason for the decline.