Sixty-four of the 255 staff at Grundfos Manufacturing's Sunderland factory will be made redundant during the coming months, after the firm suffered falling demand and lost work to overseas.
Temporary staff have already left the pump manufacturer's Sunderland plant.

The union Unite has begun a 30-day consultation with staff and Grundfos to discuss redundancy packages.

Voluntary redundancies are being discussed and compulsory redundancies will be made at the end of February.

A combination of factors was blamed, specifically a fall in demand for pumps that it supplies to the building industry and the firm losing work to Hungary. Two years ago, some of the factory's products started being manufactured from its Hungary base run by 'Grundfos Manufacturing Hungary'.