Around 125 people working at Newbury's biggest private employer, Vodafone, will lose their jobs.

The mobile phone giant plans to cut 375 posts across the UK, saying they expect those that are going will leave within 2 weeks.

Those affected will mainly be back office staff, and in a statement Vodafone say this won't be the last of the changes.

Matthew Brearley, Vodafone's HR Director, said:

"We have been doing a lot of work across the organisation, looking at how we can get closer to our customers, taking levels out, removing duplication, being more efficient, and actually just tightening up our operation.

"As we do that, we drive more of our business online, we start to change, but what we shouldn't forget is, along side that, clearly we are investing in new growth areas as well."

Vodafone are pledging to hire 170 staff to deal directly with customers as well as taking on 50 graduates to start in September.

Although Mr Brearley says the company try, where possible, to transfer those who are at risk of losing their jobs, in this case new skills are needed, meaning it will be hard to move many of those facing redundancy across.

Union, Prospect, has been reacting to the annoucement, saying they are 'very disappointed' and aware that some employees are being asked to leave without notice or redundancy consultation.

Steve Thomas, Prospect National Officer, said: "This is a disgraceful way to treat employees, particularly some very long serving and loyal members of staff who have been from Vodafone from the early days and have made the company a success."

Matthew Brearley said: "We never make a decision about any redundancies, any job losses, lightly.

"We use what is termed a compromise agreement where we have an individual consultation with everybody who is impacted.

"We will pay that individual for the consultation period, we will pay them their notice period, we give a very enhanced package for people to move on. It's very important that we treat people properly."

If you have been told you will be losing your job at Vodafone in Newbury you can get in touch with us by leaving a comment below.