Axa announces termination of 250 employees

London, Apr 4 (UNI) UK insurance company Axa has announced its plans to cut 250 general insurance jobs, as well as harbouring plans to move around 230 jobs to Bangalore.

The company also revealed its plans to cut 220 jobs at call centres in Morecambe and Darlington, as part of an ongoing process to scale back its Axa Direct general insurance business.

The firm already has an 800-strong workforce in Bangalore, with the majority serving its UK business, while around 200 serve the company's US, Australian and Japanese interests.

Amicus, the financial services union, revealed that it had been in consultation with Axa throughout the decision making process to ensure that redundancies are kept to a minimum.

Amicus has previously been outspoken in its criticism of firms like Abbey and Norwich Union when the decision is taken to relocate jobs to countries where the workforce is deemed to be cheaper and more efficient than UK employees.

With offshoring of UK jobs emerging as a growing trend, which has seen almost 2,000 financial services UK jobs lost to overseas since Christmas, the union has called upon the government to enter into talks in order to develop an effective strategy to maintain the service sector as a crucial source of employment for the nation.

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