Peugeot are to cut 850 jobs at Ryton in the summer

The job losses have been caused by the axeing of a third shift at the site which has been blamed on a dip in sales of Peugeot's 206 model.

The car manufacturer announced the job cuts last month.

Unions representing workers at the plant say there has been interest from other companies in employing those who have been made redundant.

'Transferable skills'

Jim O'Boyle, from the Transport and General workers Union, is confident they will find new jobs: "There was a job fair at Peugeot a couple of weeks ago and there were something like 1400 jobs available.

"Companies like Aston Martin, Toyota, Nissan and the manufacturing and service sector were there, expressing a lot of interest in the workers.

"I think the skills that people have at Ryton, because they are extremely efficient and they have been very flexible, means that their skills will be transferable.

"The nature of how hard they have worked at Ryton and the effort they have put in over the years, means people and organisations are very keen."

When the 850 redundancies were announced Peugeot said it hoped to cut jobs through voluntary redundancy, early retirement and redeployment of staff at other Peugeot sites.