HSBC to axe 3,000 Hong Kong jobs, unions stage protest

Trade unions protested outside banking giant HSBC's Hong Kong headquarters Thursday after the company announced it would cut 3,000 jobs in the city over the next three years, according to dpa. Members of Hong Kong's Federation of Trade Unions and Confederation of Trade Unions argued Hong Kong workers were being made to pay for the bank's problems overseas. 'This shows that the Hong Kong economy depends too much on the financial sector,' Unionist legislator Lee Cheuk-yan, who led the protest, told government-run radio station RTHK. 'It is not healthy. The financial sector is not creating jobs. It is destroying jobs.' HSBC Holdings Plc announced Wednesday it would cut 13 per cent of its 23,000 jobs in Hong Kong over the next three years as part of a global drive to cut costs and improve profitability. The London-based bank has announced plans to cut around 30,000 jobs worldwide between now and the end of 2013, one tenth of its global workforce. An email to Hong Kong staff from HSBC Asia Pacific chief executive Peter Wong said that while their cost efficiency was better the group average there was 'still room to eliminate bureaucracy and improve our efficiency.'