Reuters is planning to shift its core market data content division to India in an effort to reduce costs, according to a report by the BBC.
Reuters announced the plans on 28 July during a presentation to 1100 of its content division staff worldwide. The BBC says the move will almost certainly involve redundancies, with 415 staff in the UK affected as well as a further 600 or so in New York and White Plains in the US, Singapore and in several other offices around the world.
According to the report, staff who had joined Reuters when the firm acquired investment research house Multex had been assured that their jobs were safe, but the BBC says within days of the presentation, senior managers in the division were being told that this was not the case.
The move will see new products being developed at either Hyderabad or Bangalore. A Reuters spokeswoman said that no decision had been made on the move, but an announcement is expected by mid-September.
In February, Reuters announced plans to cut 3000 jobs and reduce costs across the enterprise after reporting record losses for 2002. The spokewoman confirmed that any job losses would be part of those already planned.