Capita will cut up to 42 jobs at call centres it runs for PC World owner DSGi in Sheffield and Nottingham because of falling call numbers.

The outsourcing giant informed staff of the redundancy programme, which will hit mainly team leaders, on Monday. Those affected today enter a 30 day statutory consultation period. Some may be offered work elsewhere in Capita.

A spokeswoman for the firm blamed the drop in calls on the recession. The departments affected by the cuts deal with customer service calls from both PC World and Currys buyers.

An insider agreed that the frequency of support calls has dropped, but added: "There is work for people to do but management's first reaction is to make cuts."

In Sheffield, 26 operations team leader roles have been marked for potential redundancy. A further ten are threatened in Nottingham. Six support staff across both sites have also been told their jobs could go.

The insider said staff representatives have suggested to management that Capita drop its employee bonus scheme, which costs it about £30,000 per month, to safeguard jobs. "We haven't got a reaction yet," our source said.

In January, DSGi said its UK stores had suffered poor sales in the run-up to Christmas.®