Around 22 people working for ferry company DFDS could be made redundant by Christmas.

The company has confirmed it is considering “potential” closure of a department at its offices in White Cliffs Business Park, Whitfield, near Dover.

Customer sales, service, and relations would then be moved to the company’s office in Newcastle, said Carsten Jensen, DFDS senior vice president.

DFDS is the second cross-Channel operator aiming to make cuts after P&O Ferries revealed that a 45-day consultation would see a “flatter” management structure.

P&O is also in the middle of consulting its employees. A letter was anonymously sent to the Mercury last week, which stated that DFDS workers had been aware of the situation since last month.

It reads: “The regrettable consequence of this is the possibility of your position being made redundant and this letter marks the start of the formal 30-day consultation period.”

DFDS has confirmed that it will consider moving staff to different departments within the company.

Mr Jensen, who is responsible for UK business, said: “I can confirm that we have entered a period of consultation on the closure of our customer sales and service centre in Dover.

"Regrettably, this does affect around 20 employees who work in that team. The way our customers communicate with us is changing, and we need to be able to respond to that change.

"Increasingly, our customers are wanting to contact us online and via social media, and less via the telephone.

"We are therefore scoping out the potential of relocating our Dover customer sales and service team to our Newcastle operations, where our UK marketing team is based, with a core competence in social media and online communications.

“I would like to underline, however, that this is a consultation period, and as such, we will be working hard to ensure that we not only make the right decision for the business, but that we also work with all employees involved to serve their best interests as much as possible.

"Should the consultation result in the customer services team relocating to Newcastle, we will work with those affected to support them in finding alternative positions either externally or within the business; the scale of our UK operations means that we are often actively recruiting people across a variety of business areas.”