Overseas Tourism staff yesterday underwent individual meetings with senior Government officials as question marks continue to hang over how many will be made redundant.

Premier Ewart Brown's Press Secretary Glenn Jones confirmed they had been given the option of applying for posts in the restructured overseas office, or the Civil Service, or redundancy.

One staff member has told The Royal Gazette there are currently 20 members of staff who will be applying for 12 positions, with eight sales jobs outsourced to US company Sales Focus.

Another present at talks this week told this newspaper that the jobs offered within Government were "insulting".

Staff have previously attacked the Premier and Mr. Jones' claims that they will be able to get jobs with Sales Focus, because they say most of them do not have the necessary green cards. Last night, Mr. Jones could not say what the expected number of redundancies was.

He previously said the figure was eight — although that was dismissed as spin by Bermuda Public Services Union, which said the true number was anything up to 20.

Mr. Jones statement said: "In New York City this week, staff affected by the restructuring of the North American Tourism operation received a collection of information from a team of senior Government officials made up of Civil Service Head Kenneth Dill, Ministry Permanent Secretary Cherie Whitter and Acting Director Ian MacIntyre.

"The distributed information included details on the new structure of the overseas Tourism operation, job descriptions for the new job posts within the restructured overseas Tourism operation and information on posts currently vacant within the Ministry of Tourism and Transport.

"Employees were invited to formally express their interest for posts either within the new structure or in the Civil Service. Within 24 hours some employees had expressed formal interest, in writing, for jobs in the new structure.

"The distributed information also provided employees with an option for redundancy.

"If redundancy is chosen, those persons will receive full redundancy entitlements as per the collective agreement.

"Employees will additionally receive full salary payments through September 30, 2008. The new restructure plan takes effect September 1, 2008.

"After distributing the information earlier this week, senior Government officials remained in New York through Wednesday to answer questions and to meet individually with employees.

"A union representative or shop steward was present for individual meetings as requested. Some employees chose to meet with senior Government officials privately.

"Employees repatriating to Bermuda are entitled to a repatriation allowance as laid out in the Government handbook for overseas workers.

'That allowance is designed to cover the cost of moving, shipping, extra baggage fees, etc. This information has also been shared with staff affected by the restructuring plan."

Mr. Jones was not able to say how many staff have expressed an interest in jobs within the new structure.