07 January 2009 News

 

Barclays cuts over 400 jobs in IT: outsourcing not ruled out

Barclays is to cut over 400 IT jobs based in the UK, affecting both full time and contractor staff.

In a statement the bank specified that these would not be off-shored, however the bank was not able to rule out a jobs transfer to a third party based in the UK.

"Wherever possible we like to keep skills and intellectual property within the organisation," said a spokesperson for the bank. "However we can't rule [outsourcing] out definitively."

In a statement Barclays said that it "Continually reviews its operations and resources so that it functions as efficiently as possible as business needs and customer requirements evolve.

As part of this process, we have identified some aspects of our technology operations where the organisational structure impedes performance, and roles and responsibilities for colleagues are unclear. In some cases, roles are obsolete or being duplicated elsewhere within the bank."

It continued: "This will affect around 400 positions: 158 permanent staff and 250 contractors. All of the roles affected are UK-based, principally in Cheshire and London."

The banks stated that it would try to support affected staff noting that "We will, of course, take all possible measures to mitigate compulsory redundancies through releasing contractors, closing vacancies and opening voluntary redundancy registers. Affected employees will be given the opportunity to apply for other roles within Barclays. We would work with the individuals affected and offer them one-to-one support to minimise the impact."