Workers made redundant from the Dewhirst factory at Cardigan on Friday will be registering at the job centre this week with little hope of immediate alternative employment.

Staff numbering 325 lost their jobs in a region with a high level of unemployment.

Tears were mixed with anger as they left the jeans factory for the final time on Friday. They claimed they were promised alternative work by the company, but that pledge has not materialised.

The company has blamed the factory closure on continued consumer pressure on prices.

With the company's factory at Fishguard also scheduled for closure this month, there will be hundreds of people fighting for the few jobs on offer in the area. Kathy Edwards, who has worked at the factory since she left school, said she and her colleagues had been left with nothing but empty promises. 'When we were briefed about the company relocating to Morocco we were told not to worry as there would be work for us,'' she said.

She has managed to secure a part-time job at Tesco, but many of her workmates will have to move away to find alternative jobs, she added.

It is a situation which will be repeated at Fishguard at the end of November when the Dewhirst factory at Goodwick closes.

Next Thursday, the National Assembly's Development Minister, Andrew Davis, and senior representatives of the Welsh Development Agency, will visit Fishguard following an invitation by local AM Dr Richard Edwards.

They will look at ways of creating sustainable jobs in the wake of the factory closures.

Lawton Phillips, secretary of the newly-formed Fishguard and Goodwick Jobs Forum, is pleased that something is being done to help the area.

'The initiative to promote sustainable jobs in this part of the county has come from within the community,'' he said. 'We have an area of outstanding beauty, a skilled workforce, direct connections to Southern Ireland. All we need now is the support which we are entitled to from the National Assembly.''

Nick Bourne, AM for Mid and West Wales, argued that more should have been done to help the community in Fishguard.

'It was pretty clear from the performance of Dewhirst over the last months and years that this decision was going to be made, and this afforded the Government of Wales an opportunity to make contingency plans to deal with the situation in Fishguard,'' he said.