Mobile phone giant Orange is axing 300 jobs as part of a "restructuring exercise".

The company says most of the job losses will go at call centres in the North East of England.

The redundancies will hit the company's five call centres, including the north east offices at Peterlee, North Shields and Darlington.

A spokeswoman denied the move was a cost-cutting exercise and said 500 new staff would be recruited soon.

Tough criticism

She said: "We have announced up to 300 job losses at our communication centres.

"The redundancies will affect staff in certain areas, but will not involve customer facing staff.

"Many of those involved have already been interviewed face to face."

Orange, along with other mobile phone operators, has come in for tough criticism in recent months for high call charges.