Shock redundancies at Saga have left around 100 people jobless just before Christmas.

The over-50s holiday and insurance company, which has its headquarters in Folkestone, delivered the unexpected announcement to its staff over the past two days.

A source told KentOnline it came completely out of the blue. Security reportedly stood over staff as they cleared their desks, before being marched out of the building.

A recruitment freeze is also thought to have been initiated, although this has not been confirmed.

A spokesman for Saga said: “We can confirm that the difficult decision has been taken this week to make around 100 employees redundant across the business.

“This process is being managed sensitively with all of Saga’s impacted employees. We are consulting with all those affected and until this process is complete we are unable to confirm the changes that will be made.

“Like many companies, we review our structure on a regular basis and in taking this action our objective is to make the business more efficient, customer focused and sustainable in the long term.

“We have made good progress this year against our strategic priorities, including the launch of a membership programme to reward our customers and the agreement to build a second new ship.

"The changes we have made this week will allow us to invest further in future growth.”

In September this year, KentOnline reported that the company was on track for a fourth straight year of growth with plans to build two new ships in three years.