A total of 300 jobs at Shropshire’s IT giant Capgemini will be axed as part of a UK cost-cutting scheme by the company, it was revealed today.
Staff at Capgemini’s Telford Town Centre site were called into meetings with top managers throughout yesterday to be told their role at the company was under threat.
It is still unknown which 300 members of staff of the 2,200 strong borough workforce will lose their jobs.
The workers, employed on contract with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, left offices in tears as they were told of their uncertain future.
A spokesman for Capgemini, said: “It is with regret that there will be 300 redundancies in Telford.
“Staff whose roles have been identified as ‘at risk’ of redundancy have been informed.”
Union spokesman Chris Morrison, of PCS Capgemini group, said it was the worst day he had experienced in his career.
“The last 48 hours have been absolutely traumatic for the staff. People have been in tears in the middle of the offices.
“We have seen a period where some of the situations are so traumatic some of the managers that have been telling them the news have had to be sent home too.
“The site has never seen anything like it. In 25 years as a trade union activist I’ve never witnessed such an appaling day,” he said.
Telford MP, David Wright, said: “This is a very difficult day for the workforce at Capgemini and my thoughts are with the people who have been informed that their jobs are at risk.”
The Capgemini spokesman said they had also introduced voluntary redundancies to the programme.
7 Comments
Will it ever end ?
Are these the people that lost all our details?
Edna, no they’re not. That would be HMRC.
Each year we hear of jobs going at Capgemini, even when it was EDS. A lot of the jobs are temporary, through agencies. I do feel sorry for the employees of the company but surely it is time to employ them on a permanent basis, which would give them a bit more job security. It seems that these days employees are dispensable, even though they are the backbone of companies.
In reply to Edna, these are the people that provide the IT and Support Systems to allow the UK to function - allowing the INland Revenue, now the HMRC, to collect the funds that provides schooling for our children, healthcare for our sick, emergency services personnel and the armed forces, and working to prevent fraudsters, drug smugglers and organised criminals from preying on the vulnerable members of our society.
They are The Best people. Not many of those ‘let go’ are temps, or contract - they’re people like you and me, with families and mortgages. These people have years of service to their Civil Service client due to TUPE transfers to whichever ‘employer’ was flavour of the moment.
I read with sadness what is happening back in my country. I would love to return home to be with loved ones, but there seems so little hope for good honest workers any more.
It is time for real change at the highest level to make the U.K. great to live and work in.
Hilary,
You seem confused. HMRC used to have its own in-house IT staff. In the 1990s these were transferred to EDS as part of a privatisation exercise. Subsequently, in 2004, EDs lost the HMRC contract to a consortium of Cap Gemini, Fujitsu and BT. Many of the EDS staff involved (whetehr originally ex-Revenue or not) were transferred to one or other of the new contractors.
Very few of the staff are ‘temps’ although from time to time all of those involved have made use of IT contractors and consultants on well-paid short term contracts.
I believe Cap Gemini are now getting rid of many long-term employees to protect their short-term profits. In the longer term I also think this will cost them, through higher costs to buy the experience they are squandering, and through greater risk (to all of us!) to the highly-complex systems they support.