More than 70 British Telecom workers face an uncertain future after a shake-up of jobs.

Staff at the BT call centre in Paradise Street, Oxford, which will move to a new building in the Oxford Business Park at the end of June this year, have been told they may have to move to other jobs within BT.

A worker said: "It has been on the cards for some time that we are going to move to a new site at Oxford Business Park, but we were guaranteed that our jobs were safe.

"It was left to our managers to tell us about the decision to cut jobs in the customer services department higher management did not have the guts to face us."

A BT spokesman said: "I can confirm that staff have been told the Oxford customer service branch is due to close by the end of August this year and that 76 people are affected by the decision."

BT refused to confirm that all staff hit by its re-structuring programme would be found jobs in Oxfordshire, but said that 40 of the 76 would move to new posts at the new site.

Opportunities to work for BT's Smaller Medium Enterprises call centre in Oxfordshire have been created for 17 workers from April.

George Kneeshaw, branch secretary for the Communication Workers' Union in Oxford, said news of the staff reorganisation had come as a shock.

He said: "BT has a no-compulsory-redundancy agreement with the union and is working with us to find alternative jobs for the staff affected."

Planning permission for the demolition of the call centre was granted last year. Southgate Developments Ltd have been given planning permission to build 95 homes and four commercial units there.