AMERICAN firm Concentrix is tomorrow expected to lay off as many as 150 staff from its call centre in Belfast.
The jobs blow follows the loss of a lucrative contract to investigate UK tax credit fraud.
HMRC said it would not renew the contract following a slew of complaints.
Tax credit investigations were dealt with by staff in Belfast
But dozens of mistakes were made leave families out of pocket.
General secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union Mark Serwotka said the job losses go "to the heart of the problem with privatisation and outsourcing, with HMRC setting payment by results targets for companies like Concentrix then seeking to wash its hands of responsibility".
“The private firms then feel they have been given the green light to mistreat staff and keep them dangling on short term contracts," he said.
"This kind of work should be done in-house, with any existing employees' jobs protected."
The anticipated redundancies represent around almost a tenth of Concentrix' 1,800 strong workforce in the city.
The contract awarded to Concentrix, was worth between £55 million and £75m on a payment by results basis, but will come to an end in spring.
Concentrix is the global business process outsourcing division of the California-based Synnex Corporation, a Fortune 500 company listed on the New York Stock exchange.
It set up its European hub in Belfast in 2011 after it bought Northern Ireland call centre company GEM.
In April 2014 it unveiled ambitious plans to recruit more than 1,000 staff in a £36m expansion of its existing operation in Belfast, one of the biggest-ever investments by a US company and described at the time as "unprecedented".
But last month it posted a slump in bottom-line profits in Northern Ireland from more than £1.7m to just £289,000.
