HSBC offshores dozens of IT jobs

HSBC is jeopardising its good standing with IT contractors by sending hundreds of technology jobs offshore.

The bank, last week voted ‘Best Client’ of 2016 by ContractorUK readers, said that 204 positions in IT would be cut, mainly by exporting them to India, China and Poland.

The losses are in addition to the 800 IT jobs that HSBC axed in the UK last year, which were also largely achieved by outsourcing them to lower cost countries.

Both sets of cuts are part of HSBC’s cost-reduction strategy, unveiled in 2015 by chief executive Stuart Gulliver, who warned of 8,000 jobs being eliminated within 30 months.

The Unite union said the latest round of losses would be remembered as a “dark day” by hundreds of the bank’s techies, who arrived at work only to be told that their IT role was being cut.

Although there is hope that HSBC has now executed all the job cuts that its strategy requires, they came just days after Yorkshire and Clydesdale Bank announced 400 job losses.