The Wood Group says it regrets the announcement has come close to Christmas

The Wood Group has confirmed it is closing its factory in Baldovie, which employs 159 people.

The company is blaming a decline in work, international competition and the strong pound for the decision to shut the site.

A 90 day consultation is under way with staff at the facility, where repairs to gas turbines are carried out.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Wood Group said: "We have taken this decision only after very careful consideration.

"In 2004, we suffered a significant decline in the volumes of our UK military aero repair programmes.

"Since then, we have worked hard to replace these volumes and invested significantly in developing new repair systems and programmes.

The timing is just shocking and the workforce are absolutely outraged Fiona Farmer Unite

"However, the aero component repair market internationally is very competitive, exacerbated by the strong pound, and we have been unable to achieve adequate replacement work.

"We have borne significant losses in the past 3 years in our attempts to find a viable future for our Dundee unit, but have regrettably now had to conclude this is not possible."

The company is promising to try to minimise compulsory redundancies and find as many suitable alternative positions within the group as possible.

The spokeswoman also apologised for the timing of the news: "We particularly regret making this announcement so close to Christmas, but rumours have started to circulate and we had to clarify the situation."

'Very difficult'

The news of the closure has angered union officials.

Fiona Farmer from Unite said: "We find the timing of this announcement absolutely despicable, less than two weeks before Christmas.

"This is a major blow for Dundee and for manufacturing in Scotland and I think we need to take a long hard look at multi-nationals and the way that they operate and the way they invest in Scotland.

"We will be looking to minimise the job losses, to look at suitable alternative employment opportunities within the Wood Group and also around Dundee, but that's going to be very difficult given previous closures of many manufacturing sites in Dundee.

"But the timing is just shocking and the workforce are absolutely outraged."