HSBC to cut 500 jobs in Asia as slump takes toll

Mon Nov 17, 2008 11:47 PM EST

business, as, jobs, hong-kong, hsbc, hsbc-holdings

HSBC Holdings PLC, Europe's largest bank by market value, plans to cut 500 jobs in Asia due to the global economic slump.

The cuts will be made in various parts of the business, including back office functions, with about 450 jobs in Hong Kong to be shed, the London-based lender announced to employees Monday.

The bank decided to trim its work force because of "organizational changes in a number of areas as well as the deteriorating economic conditions and our cautious outlook for 2009," Peter Wong, an executive director for Hong Kong and China, said in an internal message released by the bank.

"In this day and age no guarantees of job security can be given," he said.

In September, the bank announced 1,100 job cuts worldwide in the wake of the financial turmoil.

HSBC has been hit hard by the financial crisis.

The bank was forced to write down the value of its assets by $4.9 billion in the third quarter, as the cost of bad loans in the U.S. continued to mount and the credit market faltered.

Many large banks have been cutting thousands of jobs globally as they struggle to weather massive losses linked to deteriorating debt. On Monday, New York-based Citigroup Inc. said it will shed about 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters — shrinking its work force by 20 percent from its 2007 peak of 375,000. The company had already announced in October that it was eliminating about 22,000 jobs from that level.