The jobs gloom deepened yesterday as 400 employees at the Bank of China Group and 100 workers in a leading accounting firm were laid off.
About 240 employees at the bank volunteered to leave. They will be compensated according to their years with the company and with their provident fund, the group said.
Bank of China (HK) Ltd, which begins operating under its new identity on October 1 after the consolidation of its 13 sister banks, has 11,500 employees.
Employees who have been enjoying low-interest mortgages will be able to keep the benefit for 18 months. Anyone living in staff quarters will have to move out in six months.
The group's subsidiaries and partner firms, including Nanyang Commercial Bank, Chiyu Banking Corporation and its credit card centre, had promised to absorb some of the laid-off workers, a spokeswoman said. But the number of placements was not known yet.
'The 400-plus have to be made redundant because there were no suitable jobs found for them after the restructuring,' the spokeswoman said.
Lawmaker Leung Fu-wah, who is also vice-chairman of the Federation of Trade Unions, said the union would try to help workers who wanted to be reinstated.