The wave of job cuts sweeping through the utility sector gathered pace yesterday with 800 more redundancies planned by two electricity groups joining forces in order to meet regulator's price demands and improve efficiency. Trade unions expressed anger that the announcement by two foreign-owned utilities, London Electricity and Eastern Electricity, came during the period immediately before Christmas. They noted that it arrived on the back of nearly 1,300 other job losses in this sector since early October. Half of the 160,000jobs in the electricity sector have gone since privatization in 1988. More than 2,000 redundancies have also been announced recently by water companies, and more are expected from United Utilities as they, too, seek to meet tougher regulatory targets. Not everyone in the industry is convinced that the current spate of job cuts in the utility sector is justified. One leading industry executive, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: 'I am very concerned that companies are using the regulators' price cut as an excuse for carrying out general cuts that they have wanted to do for some time. It is causing disquiet among utilities customers.' If regulatory approval is given London Electricity—a unit of Electricite de France—and Eastern Electricity, controlled by American conglomerate Texas Utilities, will form. a joint venture from April 1, 2000, which will run their respective electricity distribution businesses. The companies will continue to compete on the supply and billing side of their operations but hope the new alliance will be able to win third party business, whether in electricity or other sectors such as gas. The 800 job losses mean a quarter of the jobs affected by the joint venture will be lost within 18 months, and that the remaining positions will be dependant on the general level of business activity. The two companies plan to achieve cost savings through fewer workers, having a single information system, a smaller number of buildings and buying more in bulk. Phil Turbeville, chief executive of Texas Utilities' TXS Europe subsidiary, said: 'It is the responsible management response to the challenges of the tough price control while delivering further improvements in customer service. He added that customers would benefit because lower costs meant more money available for new investment, and denied that the decision could have been made at a better time or would have been different if it had not been a foreign owned group. 'Whether we told staff just before Christmas or just after it would have been the same. There is no good time to make redundancies. As you can see from what Scottish-based utilities have been doing, this is nothing to do with Paris or Texas. It is just prudent management,' Mr. Turbeville said. The phrase 'gathered pace' in the first paragraph most probably refers to_____.