ANOTHER 123 jobs are being axed in a further "shattering" blow to workers at a Wyre Forest carpet factory.

Carpets of Worth, which made 57 workers redundant last week, is now cutting its workforce by almost half by shutting its Stourport factory and consolidating operations at its Kidderminster site as part of a four-year reorganisation plan.

Thirty-five job losses in January had reduced the workforce to about 300, but the continual downturn in domestic trade has led to the latest decision, which will see 66 job cuts at Kidderminster and 57 at Stourport.

Gordon Rudd, general secretary of the Kidderminster-based Carpet Weavers Union, said the Stourport site was expected to be closed by the end of the year, apart from the firm's warehouse which will remain in the town "at least for the foreseeable future".

Mr Rudd, a former employee of the 140-year-old company, added union representatives at the firm were "shattered" at the number of job losses at Carpets of Worth, which employed about 1,200 staff in 1990.

The redundancies are a major setback for the district as a whole, which has seen unemployment fall for 16 months in succession with less than three per cent of the workforce out of work at the end of July.

Mr Rudd said: "This is without doubt a bad blow for the area. While commercial sales to places such as hotels and pubs are holding up, the domestic side of the industry is continuing to struggle.

"The fashion for stripped floors has hit the industry hard and some of the margins demanded by some retailers are too high.

"There seems to be a lack of public spending power at present because of the high pound and many cheap imports also being available."

The union is continuing to negotiate with the firm to secure the "best possible deal" for its members when the redundancy programme, which is expected to be completed by November 3, takes place.

Mr Rudd said he expected the company, which went into Arab ownership in 1979, would move increasingly into retail in the future by importing carpets from countries including Turkey and Poland and selling them on.

He added: "There is also a good possibility it will begin to move into other products by manufacturing ceramics and tiles."

Carpets of Worth declined to comment about the job cuts.