INSURANCE giant Royal & Sun Alliance is axing nearly 300 jobs in Sussex.

Employees were told yesterday that the group will be shutting its customer service centres in Brighton and Horsham next year.

It will mean the loss of 200 jobs in Horsham and 90 in Brighton.

The centre in Brighton will close in April and Horsham in July.

Aspokesman for the company said it was making the announcement early to give staff the maximum time to find other jobs.

He said: "We will be setting up job finding and training centres at both offices and putting an embargo on advertising jobs within the group so staff at the centres will be told about the vacancies first.

"It will be a two-pronged attack, with the centres liaising with other local employers and agencies to check what vacancies they have."

The company denied the cutbacks were due to huge claims and a collapse in profits after the recent hurricanes in the U.S. and storm damage in the UK.

Staff at the Brighton office were read a prepared statement after lunch. But one group had not even returned to the office by the time it was announced at 2.50pm.

Workers were let out early and some drowned their sorrows in nearby Yates Wine Lodge in West Street.

One young man told the Argus: "Two weeks ago we were told there were going to be some cutbacks. They said it would involve redundancies and wouldn't affect us.

"They have just increased the sales incentives and now two weeks later, we have no job."

Call centre workers at the Royal & Sun Alliance offices in Chart Way, Horsham, were stunned at the news.

Many wondered why the firm had been recruiting new staff within the last few weeks.

Gareth Lewis, 18, started at the firm five weeks ago.

He said: "I only finished training last week, now I've lost my job.

"I'm pretty upset."

The latest cuts add to a spate of job losses in Sussex over the past few months, which include nearly 400 at Southern Water, 300 at PPP Healthcare's Eastbourne office, 200 at ITT London and Edinburgh in Worthing and 160 at Philips in Hastings.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.