A letter to the workforce seen by the West Cumberland Times & Star said: “The company is in the regrettable position of having to consider implementing a redundancy programme as a result of a downturn in work.

“At this early stage, we anticipate it may be necessary to make eight construction operatives redundant.”

Its first step, it said, was to offer voluntary redundancy.

The letter added: “We also wish to explore with employees whether there are options available other than redundancy.”

A spokeswoman at the £125m turnover firm confirmed that there was a possibility that jobs could be lost in construction, but emphasised that this was not definite and no numbers had yet been decided.

She said: “We are facing the same problems as everyone else in the present economic climate and we are working hard to keep our workforce.”