Glass company Pilkington announces job cuts

Seventy six jobs are to be lost at glassmaker Pilkington's Merseyside headquarters.

The St Helens-based company said it was forced to make the redundancies due to the global downturn.

"It has hit the building industry particularly hard so we are having to reduce our capacity and adjust costs," a company spokesman said.

The firm also said a new plant at its Greengate site in the town might not begin operating until 2010.

St Helens Council leader Brian Spencer said: "I am extremely concerned about the long term impact this will have on the future of the manufacture of sheet glass in the borough.

"The sheet glass process has been part of our heritage for over a century."

He called on the company to do everything possible to retain manufacturing capacity in St Helens so if conditions improved it could operate at previous levels.

Pilkington employs more than 4,000 people across the UK making float, rolled and wired glass products.