The Department for Work and Pensions today announced it wants to merge staff and facilities
A Coventry Jobcentre is among those set to close, it has emerged.
The Department for Work and Pensions today announced it wants to merge staff and facilities from 78 smaller Jobcentre Plus offices into larger ones.
It wants to move another 50 into council or other similar offices to create “one-stop shops”, and shut 27 back offices, Mirror Online reports.
The Jobcentre site in Torrington Ave, in Tile Hill, has been earmarked for closure and will merge with Cofa Court in Cheylesmore five miles away.
The DWP insisted the move - carried out to slash its bills by £180m a year - would employ “under-used” buildings more efficiently.
But the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union, which represents DWP staff, warned jobless people will have to travel further to sign on - and claimed thousands of jobs will be put at risk.
A DWP source claimed a figure of thousands of job losses was "completely wrong" but estimated around 750 jobs were at risk.
The PCS union warned more than one in ten Jobcentres in England, Wales and Scotland was set to close.
PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: "Jobcentres provide a lifeline for unemployed people, and forcing them to travel further is not only unfair, it undermines support to get them back to work.
"We are opposed to these closures and will vigorously fight any attempt to force DWP workers out of their jobs."
There will only be public consultations in cases where Jobcentres are being moved more than three miles or 20 minutes' journey away.
Shadow work and pensions secretary Debbie Abrahams branded the closures "reckless at best and perverse at worst".
It comes after previous plans to shut half the Jobcentre sites in Glasgow prompted fury from the PCS and SNP MPs.
"Five miles" from the Tile Hill to the centre of town?
