Goldman Sachs shifts to India
Goldman Sachs is set to cut 250 jobs across its global operations as it moves some work to India. Reports had suggested the US investment bank was planning to axe British jobs in order to move part of its UK administrative and IT departments to India in the spring.
But a spokesman for the firm denied claims that all of the 250 jobs would go in the UK.
He acknowledged, though, that 250 jobs would be created in India, while there would be "no change" in the company's global headcount.
The backroom operations move is likely to mirror those by other firms that have out-sourced call centres or administrative work to Asia.
Insurers Prudential and Aviva, as well as BT have already hived off parts of their back offices to the region.
But most firms that have moved chunks of their businesses abroad claim they are creating jobs abroad, rather than moving them out of the UK.
Several other banks are also considering moving some operations to India in the hope of cutting costs.
Cost cutting
According to the Independent newspaper, Goldman's chief financial officer David Viniar made the announcement to all staff in a voicemail message.
The memo said: "Establishing Goldman Sachs in India met a number of important objectives.
"It would enable the firm to reduce our expense base significantly and permit redeployment of critical resources to other functions across the organisation.
Mr Viniar made no mention of job losses, but added: "This will result in changes to our organisation and will affect certain functions and individuals," the paper said.
Britain's largest professional union, Amicus, has voiced alarm over the plans, warning the decision could spark a "wave of copy cat actions" that would see tens of thousands of jobs lost in the UK.
Joint General Secretary Roger Lyons said: "Britain's major companies are teetering on the brink of outsourcing hundreds of thousands of jobs.
"Once one major company goes they all will but no one wants to go first."
The union added that a survey of industry experts and consultants - including Accenture, Adecco and Deloitte & Touche - suggests that up to 200,000 jobs are likely to be lost across the UK under the trend.
It added that analysts predicted an estimated 2m jobs could migrate from Western Europe by 2008.
Unions such as Unifi and Amicus are so alarmed at the growing trend that they have already persuaded some companies to sign agreements designed to protect UK jobs.
Originally at
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3096551.stm
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