ZURICH has announced the first wave of posts that will go as part of its cost-cutting plan.

The insurance firm said at the end of March that 450 jobs would go by the end of the year.

At the time Zurich could not say which departments would be losing staff, except that the redundancies would mainly be from Swindon and Cheltenham, but now it has emerged that in Swindon 20 posts will be axed from the finance department, and 28 people in the endowment review department will go.

A spokeswoman said: "We announced the need to reduce our numbers earlier this year, since which time we have been working with the employee forum and union to identify areas to be affected.

"We are now beginning the process of releasing people, hence the news of our colleagues in finance and the endowment review team who are among the first to be leaving us."

Zurich has said it will first of all try and redeploy staff within the company, and if that is impossible it will give workers one-to-one help with career counselling to help them find a new job.

Zurich is also leaving the Focal Point building which it rents in Fleming Way. The 250 staff who work there will move to the Tri-centre complex near the bus station and the spokeswoman said Zurich is currently looking to dispose of the lease.