HSBC shedding 1,100 jobs worldwide - Malta not affected

HSBC Holdings Europe's biggest bank, said today it is cutting 1,100 jobs in its global banking and markets operation, or 4 percent of the unit's total, as it weathers the global financial crisis.

"We're doing it because of market conditions and the economic environment, and our cautious outlook for 2009," Hong Kong-based spokesman Gareth Hewett told Reuters.

The jobs are in front and back office operations. About half of the positions affected are in the United Kingdom, where HSBC has its headquarters, and 100 of the positions are in Hong Kong, where the bank's large Asian operations are based.

The job cuts do not affect Malta, a spokesman for HSBC told timesofmalta.com

Globally, HSBC employs about 335,000 people.

"Markets continue to be challenging and difficult but our strategy leaves us well positioned for the next wave of global growth, when it comes," Hewett said.

The financial services sector is hemorrhaging jobs amid the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, which has seen unprecedented change on Wall Street and the demise of venerable firms such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers

HSBC was one of the first banks to feel the sting of the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States and has booked write-downs or losses of $18.7 billion since the start of the global credit crunch last year.

In August, the bank posted a 28 percent fall in first-half pre-tax profit to $10.2 billion as it took a $14 billion hit from bad debts on U.S. home loans and asset writedowns.

In its global banking and markets business, pre-tax profit fell 35 percent in the first half to $2.1 billion, although that was a 37 percent increase from the second half of 2007.

There is no change in strategy at Global Banking and Markets, which is to be a leading emerging markets-led and financing-focused wholesale bank," Hewett said.