Yet another bank is at the centre of controversy as it announces 3,167 employees are to be cut from the workforce. HSBC is on the receiving end of the wrath of Unite and other unions throughout the UK. The bank’s chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, is the target of most of their anger.
At a time when the entire nation is undergoing cuts and in the midst of austerity, Gulliver is taking home a huge salary of at least £8 million whilst thousands are being cut because the bank cannot afford the salary overhead.
According to the national officer for Unite, David Fleming, Gulliver is guilty of flagrant hypocrisy when he doesn’t object to his own salary but intends to cut a total of 30,000 jobs altogether before all is said and done.
This latest round of cuts will be within middle and senior management jobs, Gulliver claims that only, in his words, a small portion would affect staff who directly serves customers. Of the number being cut from the workforce and the UK, 2,217 workers will be made redundant within the coming months.
These job cuts within the UK are on a par with those across the entire group, that being one in every ten. Since operations on high street employed approximately 40,000 workers this is roughly one-tenth as projected. Mr. Fleming also states that there is no justification for staff being treated in this awful way after having reported profits of £13.8 billion last year.
Even so, 650 workers are being cut because of the way financial advice is being offered as a result of regulatory changes. The head of the UK branch of HSBC, Joe Garner, says that workers who will be losing their jobs have his deepest sympathy and he promises to keep the number being made redundant to a minimum.
