IT and ops staff cheaper in Eastern Europe

6 July 2006

1 minute read

IT and ops staff cheaper in Eastern Europe

In a move that may augur badly for IT and back-office staff, it seems Italian bank Unicredit wants to cut 12,000 jobs by 2008 in a bid to reduce costs. On the flipside, another 5,000 will be hired as the bank expands into Russia.

Paolo Fiorentino, Unicredit's head of global banking services, told the Financial Times efficiency is his obsession, and that reducing the firm's 134,000 headcount by 5% over three years would enable the group to hire employees in Eastern Europe at a much lower cost.

Fiorentino said an IT employee in Poland would cost €24k (16.7k), compared to €77k in Italy, and that a back-office employee would cost €9k in Romania, compared to €66.4k in Italy.

Well, when you put it like that...

AUTHORAnonymous

Insider Comment

em
emilio13
26 May 2009
I've frequently observed & heard the same from associates at the banks that although the bottom line money-savings are made, the firms reputation & curcially, their day-to-day efficiencies markedly suffer as cheap offshore locaitons & the staff employed suffer from a lack of real depth of experience and crucially, are usually unable to make on the spot decisions without a CYA emails from Ldn or NY so, if you pay peanuts...
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t.
t.anev
13 October 2008
Just to add - In the cost is extreemly engaged with the quality of the service, so go for savings in India and receive significantly worse service then you have to pay foe auditors to search what exactly caused the reductions.
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rl
rlevan14
25 September 2008
Well if all you're looking for is number crunchers and fodder.. the real knowledge and experience will always be in the originators country.
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adityaiyer
10 June 2008
In India you can will get it for half the cost of Romania and Poland... ;)
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