Up to 900 mainly call centre employees face an uncertain future as a "slow roll off" of jobs is expected to occur over the next two years . . .although they will transfer to IBM next month as part of an outsourcing deal. It is understood, however, that a sizeable minority of the staff moving to IBM are agency contractors hired recently by Xerox, even though the deal with IBM had been under discussion for six months.

Slides from an internal Xerox briefing shown last Monday at a meeting between management and 12 elected staff representatives revealed that much of the outsourced work is likely to be transferred to IBM facilities in Bulgaria, India, Scotland and the Philippines.

Xerox will underwrite the six weeks consideration for employees and will continue to employ 800 staff in Dublin and Dundalk.

The uncertainty over jobs in north Dublin comes as figures from the Central Statistics Office show the number of people seeking unemployment assistance reached 163,000 in July, an increase of 800 on the three-year high reported for June.

A slowdown in the residential construction industry has also sparked job concerns, and some commentators expect job cuts after the builders' holidays next week.