Npower Expected to Confirm Axe to Fall on 1,400 Jobs

Npower is expected to cut 1,400 jobs across the United Kingdom, according to the BBC, with a further 570 jobs outsourced within Britain.

There are to be closures at a number of Npower sites in the UK, while some back-office operations will be outsourced to India, said reports.

The Npower press office did not deny nor confirm the accuracy of the report but was expected to give further details on Thursday morning.

Npower, one of the UK's big six gas and electricity suppliers, announced a major overhaul of its UK operations in August.

In mid-November, energy giant RWE, said that it planned to cut 6,750 jobs across Europe in a bid to reduce costs.

The German utilities company, which employs more than 67,000 workers and supplies more than 16 million electricity customers and nearly eight million gas customers, said it hoped to lower capital expenditure from €4.5bn (£3.7bn, $6bn) this year to €3bn in 2016.

The cuts came amid came as big six firms saw a 77% leap in average profit per household from 2011 to 2012, the industry regulator revealed. Ofgem said that supplier profit per household had lifted from £30 to £53 between the two years.

Profit margins for supply for household customers more than doubled from 2.8% to 4.3% over the same period. A cold winter in 2012 increased energy consumption in Britain.