Barclays Bank has confirmed that it will offshore many sections of its IT
operations over the next three years.
As many as 1,800 UK jobs could be shipped overseas. Some will be offered to
UK employees, but the company is giving no idea of terms and conditions.
"Some roles will move offshore and colleagues will have the opportunity to
apply for these roles and relocate," Barclays said in a statement.
"As far as possible, we will manage the reduction in headcount by reducing
the number of contractors and temps we employ.
"Where permanent staff are affected, working with Unite, we have put in place
significant support to help them find another role, either in Barclays, or
externally."
Early indications are that the bank will be using the long lead time to
reduce the need for redundancies and to make job cuts through natural wastage.
Unite says it expects fewer than 50 jobs to go via redundancy.
The move
mirrors
that taken by Lloyds TSB last year and is part of the
steady
growth of outsourcing for cost savings purposes, despite evidence that such
moves are
not
popular with customers.
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