"OVERWHELMED" Torfaen call centre bosses have received more than 600 applications after advertising 140 new jobs as part of a major recruitment drive.

We Fight Any Claim, a company which reclaims mis-sold payment protection insurance, announced it was seeking to boost its workforce from 419 to about 560 this summer.

The firm has gone through the applications and has already appointed around 90 staff to work full time at its call centre in Tintern House, William Brown Close, Cwmbran.

The company said it would continue to recruit full-time employees and is also seeking to take on 40 part-time agents.

The call centre has pledged to give its staff work life balance and has slashed full-time contracts from 40 to 35 hours a week as part of a "Work Small, Live Big" ethos.

A spokesman said: "In response to our quest to find an extra 140 staff to move We Fight Any Claim forward, we were overwhelmed by the response.

"We received in excess of 666 applications for these positions, and many of these applications are now going through our full recruitment process.

"We have already identified and recruited 91 full-time roles from this process, but we are still looking for part-time agents and we continue to recruit for full-time staff.

"As a company, we are committed to providing quality employment in the local area of Cwmbran, Newport and Pontypool, with permanent contracts, full training, and opportunities to progress.

"This is important to us as we know our success is built on our people, and as we move forward we are bringing them with us and giving opportunities for others to join us."

The recruitment drive came to light as figures showed unemployment in Wales had fallen by 3,000 to 97,000 to the three months to June.

We Fight Any Claim added it hoped to be able to offer more new roles as it moved forward into 2015 and beyond.