The jobs of 165 people at a Sussex-based electronics firm are expected to go.

Staff at BOC Edwards are bracing themselves for confirmation of the redundancies, expected in mid-December.

Consultations with management, staff, and union representatives began last week and will continue for the next three months.

The award-winning manufacturing firm, which employs about 1,500 in Sussex, has traditionally made vacuum pumps for the industrial, chemical, and scientific markets.

Since the Eighties, it has focused on semi-conductors for the electronics industry. Following one of the worst downturns in the history of the electronics market the company has had to announce job cuts at factories in Burgess Hill, Shoreham, Crawley, Eastbourne and Newhaven.

The firm employs a further 250 at other sites across the UK but most of the job losses will be in Sussex.

Company spokesman Andrew Davis said: "We don't yet know where the breakdown of redundancies will be. It could be a couple of weeks, it could be at the end of the consultation process.

"Despite this news we have no plans to close any of our branches.

"In fact we have recently doubled the size of our Burgess Hill factory. Shoreham is the company's biggest site and it will remain so."

In July and August, 95 people volunteered for redundancy which helped the firm cut its costs by £4 million but it was not enough to prevent further job losses.

The industry downturn has been caused by a slowdown in the US economy and a worldwide fall in demand for mobile telephones and personal computers.