Insurance giant Royal & Sun Alliance (RSA) is set to send over 1,000 jobs to India to cut costs and offer the company ‘greater operational flexibility’.
The 1,100 jobs that will go in the UK will save RSA approximately £10m a year and will come in front and back office roles, including call centres.
RSA’s UK chief executive Duncan Boyle told the BBC that the reduction in UK jobs would be managed through natural turnover and redeployment.
“We work in a very competitive environment and processing some of our work in India will not only help us control costs but also give us greater operational flexibility,” he said.
Amicus national secretary, David Fleming, said the announcement showed that offshoring presented an unprecedented threat to UK jobs and the economy.
However, recent research has shown that the number of call centre jobs in the UK is set to increase despite firms moving work to India.
A survey of 107 companies showed that most expected their workforce to increase in the coming year, although staff turnover remained a huge problem at 25 per cent.
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The number of firms hiring staff in the past year was 58 per cent, compared with 51 per cent in the previous 12 months.
Companies in financial services, telecoms, utilities and the public sector were most likely to expand, according to the research by Incomes Data Services.
