Another 840 jobs to go at HSBC

HSBC announced the loss of 840 UK jobs on Monday, as it prepared to shed hundreds of IT jobs locally and ship them offshore.

It was the latest in a series of swingeing cuts announced last June, when HSBC bosses said 8,000 staff would lose their jobs UK-wide.

595 of Monday’s axings were in Sheffield and Tankersley, and 30 in Leeds.

“As part of a global relocation exercise, 840 non-customer-facing IT roles will transfer from the UK to other sites around the world,” said HSBC UK chief operating officer John Hackett in a statement.

The unions were less than pleased, with Unite’s national officer Dominic Hook describing them as “ruthless” and “reckless”.

“As IT glitches across the banks continue to prove, it is ultimately the customers who will suffer the consequences.”

At the end of December HSBC had 47,000 people on the payroll in the UK, though many of them remained on tenterhooks on Monday as many hundreds more jobs are expected to go in the coming months if the bank is to meet its 8,000 target.

The cuts were part of a three-year restructuring plan, designed to rein in its sprawling and expansive network by shuttering underperforming divisions.