MORE than 100 jobs will be lost at Swindon's Tyco plants as the American firm moves operations to the Czech Republic.

An anticipated 70 jobs out of 90 in one part of the company's Cheney Manor base are to be lost to its Trutnov base in the former Communist nation.

And a further 35 are set to go at the Dorcan plant, in streamlining exercised throughout the UK. Some of these positions could be saved with the movement of operations to Dorcan from Tyco's plant in Doncaster.

Mike Ratcliff, manager of communications, said: "We did announce to employees that we were having some reductions and changes at Dorcan and Cheney Manor in Swindon.

"We are making a number of changes at these plants and at our Doncaster facility to maximise efficiency and reduce costs."

The job losses at Cheney Manor will be among staff working on the manufacturing of labels and other "identification" products, as this process is moving to Trutnov.

Mr Ratcliff said: "We anticipate that 70 people will be impacted in that move. There are approximately 90 people employed there and we hope they will be redeployed.

"At Cheney Manor there is one facility, building A, where the action is taking place, and basically everyone in that building will be affected.

"At Dorcan the impact is not on manufacturing staff per se, it's across a number of areas - engineering, procurement and product management, as well as manufacturing.

"The work is not really moving anywhere, the changes are as a result of analysis of better ways to work and do the job."

"We will be moving some manufacturing in Doncaster to our Dorcan facility."

Mr Ratcliff could not confirm how many jobs could be saved at this stage in the process, but said it is "possible but not definite" that some positions will be transferred.

All employees are now working with the management teams at the Swindon plants and redundancies will be notified as soon as possible, and that all who face a job loss will receive the company's "separation benefits package".

"These decisions are always difficult to make and we value employees' contributions," said Mr Ratcliff.

"It is no reflection of poor work on their part, it's a matter of having to always evaluate to get better efficiencies and effectiveness to compete in this changing global market."