HSBC resumes plan to axe 35,000 jobs: report

CEO Noel Quinn said that they will maintain a freeze on almost all external recruitment.

HSBC is resuming a redundancy plan that will see over 35,000 employees lose their jobs over the medium term, a memo seen by Reuters showed.

The bank will also maintain a freeze on almost all external recruitment, Chief Executive Noel Quinn said in the memo sent to the bank’s 235,000 staff worldwide.

“We could not pause the job losses indefinitely—it was always a question of ‘not if, but when’,” Quinn said.

A bank spokeswoman confirmed the contents of the memo.

HSBC first announced the job cuts in February as part of a wider restructuring to cut costs. However, the bank postponed its plans in March, saying the circumstances brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic meant it would have been wrong to push staff out.

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