London-based multinational investment bank HSBC recently announced that it has put on hold the plan to cut 35,000 jobs.
The bank said that the decision to put job cuts on a halt was because it does not want to leave staff unable to find work elsewhere during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Earlier in February, HSBC had said that it plans to scale back its headcount from 235,000 to about 200,000 over the next three years. The move is part of a restructuring program that aimed to achieve $4.5bn (£3.6bn) of cost cuts by 2022.
But in the latest announcement, CEO Noel Quinn said the “the vast majority” of redundancies would now be put on hold due to the exceptional circumstances.
“The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our customers has been the main driver of the change in our financial performance,” Quinn was quoted as saying by the BBC.
Separately, in a note to employees earlier this month, Quinn had said he would donate a quarter of his base salary, about £160,000, for the next six months to charity. He will also not take his annual cash bonus, which would have been up to £1.2 million.
Chief Financial Officer Ewen Stevenson said he would take similar action, donating £93,000 and forgoing £706,000, while Chairman Mark Tucker will donate his entire 2020 fee to charity, about £1.5 million.
It came as senior executives and board members at other major UK banks, including RBS and Lloyds, agreed to give up their bonuses for this year.
The announcements were in response to calls from the Bank of England to restrict bonuses during the pandemic.
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