Furniture giant MFI has unveiled plans to shut the site at Wayfarer Road, Low Southwick.

The firm is believed to have employed as many as 300 to deal with increased call volumes in the peak sales period at Christmas.

MFI has started talks with the 170 full and part-time employees about the closure.

MFI has been struggling for some time and the decision to close the Southwick centre is part of a drive to make store staff more responsible for customer service.

Chief executive Gary Favell said: "Making significant changes to the MFI business is a necessary task in order to continue to deliver improved performance.

"We aim to offer clearer lines of support to customers whose natural first port of call is their local store.

"The Sunderland contact centre has been a core part of the MFI business for several years and it is not without considerable planning and disappointment that we make this difficult decision."

MFI plans to transfer part of customer services, worked currently provided on Wearside, to a smaller contact centre operation in Cardiff, which the firm has been using as a backup for Sunderland since March.

One centre worker, who did not wish to be named, said staff had been in tears when news of the closure plan was broken earlier this week.

He said: "The closure is scheduled for September 30 – we are now on 90-days' notice.

"People were breaking down in tears. A lot of the women are single mums."

"At Christmas time we were full. We had about 300 people down there," he said.

"But the numbers have been dwindling down over the last few months."

Head of the city council's business and investment team, Janet Snaith, said: "It's always disappointing when a major employer announces such large job losses.

"We understand that the closure will not take place until September.

"Given the company's highly skilled and well- trained workforce, we hope these employees will soon find new jobs in the same sector, particularly with the recent posts created elsewhere in the contact centre sector in the city."

MFI has been struggling since long before the current credit crunch.
The 200-store chain was sold to the private equity firm Merchant Equity Partners in September 2006 for a nominal £1, following mounting losses.