MORE than 100 staff at accountancy firm KPMG have been made redundant across the north - by e-mail.
A total of 109 have lost their jobs, 45 of them in Manchester and the rest spread between KPMG offices in Leeds, Liverpool, Preston, Stoke and Newcastle.
Alan Benzie, the northern regional chairman, said 60 per cent were compulsory redundancies. They were among 750 axed in a national cull.
Eighty-five of those to go in the north were accountants across all disciplines. The rest were support staff. Before the redundancies, KPMG employed 1,400 in the north, - 500 were based in Manchester.
Mr Benzie said: "This has come about because the transaction market has slowed down. We don't like these things to happen but we have to look at the ongoing viability of the business, and make business decisions, however hard they are."
Staff selected for redundancy were notified by email.
A spokeswoman said: "It was done that way because that is what the staff requested. We asked people how they would want to be told - by phone, email or letter.
"The general consensus was that email was the preferred way of doing it. Everyone who was made redundant had an email.
"People who were on holiday or maternity leave logged on at home, and it worked very well." Tweet