Barclays in Union agreement over transferring jobs

Barclays today announced that it was the first bank to reach an agreement with the finance union, UNIFI, that created a framework for transferring jobs overseas.

A spokesman for Barclays said the bank considers the transfer of jobs from the UK to countries such as India as "simply one of the options in our tool-kit," and that no major UK job-loss announcement was on the cards right now.

The bank has agreed to give workers at least three months' notice of job losses as well as three months' pay once they lose their job.

Barclays also agreed to help find staff jobs within the company or to fund training for a job outside the bank.

The agreement applies to all projects that involve offshore outsourcing and in some circumstances will apply in Britain also.

Some UK banks have already announced their intention to move call centre jobs to countries such as India, where educated workers can be employed to answer phones and enter data at inexpensive rates.

Barclays said last week it had about 550 workers in India, up from about 150 at the end of June, and that it would probably hire more there.

HSBC is moving 4,000 UK jobs to India and China and Lloyds TSB is transferring 750 call centre jobs to India and aims to have 1,500 workers there by the end of this year.