SOUTHAMPTON workers were breathing a sigh of relief today as industrial gases group BOC said job cuts would not include staff at Fawley and Totton.

The company had said it would make 1,500 people redundant worldwide. Two hundred jobs are set to be lost in the UK, but they are unlikely to include the 85 people employed by the firm in the Southampton area. Jobs would be lost at BOC Edwards in Crawley, Sussex, rather than in Southampton. Sixty people work for BOC Fawley, in Charleston Road, supplying liquid gases to hospitals and firms across the south.

A further 25 people work for BOC Totton, in Brunel Road, Redbridge, putting the fizz into Coca Cola and the gas into lager. But one worker at BOC in Fawley told the Daily Echo that the company had been kept in the dark about potential job losses. "We heard nothing about it. We just heard about it on the radio. But we are relieved."

BOC announced a turnover of £3,143m in June, up nine per cent on last year and three per cent on the previous quarter.

Its operating profit is now up 13 per cent to £459m. But the group's chief executive, Tony Isaac, blamed the job losses on a "downturn in the worldwide semiconductor industry". A spokesman for the company said: "It is always regrettable when we have to make job losses, but in the current economic climate it is necessary to ensure the long-term future of the company." Jim Mowatt, chief negotiator for the gas industry at the Transport and General Workers' Union, said, "It is ironic that the UK workforce, which has worked smarter and harder to deliver on productivity targets, now faces an uncertain time."