HSBC ships more work overseas as part of 3,500 jobs "cull"

Hundreds of IT and call centre positions will be lost in the UK as part of 3,500 job cuts by HSBC Bank.

HSBC said the cuts are aimed at cutting bureaucracy and streamlining costs. A statement said the group's UK banking operations account for a third of its costs but only a quarter of its profits, with costs continuing to rise nearly as fast as revenues. HSBC employs 41,500 people in the UK.

The majority of jobs affected will be in the Canary Wharf head office, and support and processing functions. Many regional management positions will also be cut, the bank said in a statement.

Over 1,000 processing, customer service and back-office jobs will go with processing centres in Cardiff, Sheffield, Leeds, Avon and Frimley all being closed by 2006. Call centre work will be moved to India and Malaysia with 500 jobs moving to HSBC's operations there.

The latest job cuts are in addition to the 4,000 positions being transferred overseas that the bank announced eight months ago. But HSBC said up to 1,000 new customer-facing jobs will also be created in HSBC's branches as part of the restructuring.

Michael Geoghegan, CEO of HSBC Bank, said the only way to secure jobs in the long term is by remaining efficient and competitive.

"We must make decisions now, however difficult, to manage for the future," he said in a statement. "We also fully understand that these changes will create uncertainty for staff in the areas affected."

Financial services union Unifi has reacted with anger to what it calls a "savage jobs cull".

Rob O'Neill, Unifi national secretary, said in a statement: "Unifi is furious with this latest round of job cuts. These latest plans to cut jobs are coming from the top down in order to slash costs and is certainly not a measured look at the business needs and the staff required to deliver a good service to customers. Unifi is calling on HSBC to stop and review - not accelerate - the transfer of UK jobs."

HSBC said it has committed £2m for a programme of career and financial counselling for affected staff and will aim to redeploy them into roles across the UK.