Perhaps BarCap's Scottish employees shouldn't sweat over job cut fears

To be frank, it would be slightly poor form if BarCap's reported plans to cut as many as 300 back office roles were to hit Scotland, largely because most of its employees north of the border have only just started working there.

The bank's plans to shift a number of back office functions to Glasgow has been something of a boon for the city's financial sector. Hundreds of roles - coincidentally, or not, believed to be around 300 - are being created north of the border, and an aggressive recruitment timescale has been set. The roles need to be filled by October.

According to sources, the first tranche of recruits started joined the company around two weeks' ago and so far there's no suggestion that any redundancies would hit the bank's new shared services centre in Glasgow.

In fact, the expansive recruitment plans north of the border have not been affected, suggest sources.

The job cuts are believed to affect administrative and support functions in Asia, the US and Europe. Although the BarCap has yet to announce any formal redundancy plans, a spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that the bank has entered a consultation period with staff in infrastructure functions "which will result in some job losses".

BarCap's global recruitment drive within its equities and investment banking division has certainly pushed up compensation costs, and during its Q2 results conference call the bank attempted to calm analysts' concerns over the need to rein in costs after a sharp fall in market activity during the period.

At the time we reported on BarCap's Glasgow hiring spree, the bank confirmed it would be transferring these functions across from London, New York and Singapore, but insisted job losses are "not likely to be significant".

It's therefore possible that the option of transferring to Scotland has not been particularly popular with incumbent back office employees in other locations and that a proportion of these job losses could be as a result of natural wastage through making the move.

It would certainly be an easy way to qualm fears over staff costs without cutting back the legions of front office investment bankers it has brought in over the last 12 months.