Royal Dutch Shell is to scrap thousands of jobs in an effort to cut jobs and streamline the company’s structure, according to a report in the British Sunday Telegraph newspaper yesterday.

Shell is negotiating ‘one of the largest ever outsourcing deals’ which it hopes to complete within the next couple of months, the paper says. The oil company is also planning to reorganise various departments, including finance operations.
The IT department is to bear the brunt of the cuts with 3,600 jobs on the line, the paper says. According to one unnamed source, 3,200 of these jobs will be outsourced. The finance department could also be under fire.
The information comes from a leak by disillusioned Shell staff, the Sunday Telegraph says. The paper adds that Shell is planning a series of meetings with staff starting on January 8 to outline further details.
On Monday most of the British press, including the Financial Times, had picked up the news and were running similar stories.
According to ANP news service, a Shell spokesman on Monday was unable to confirm or deny the reports. He said the company would make a statement in March, adding that the company has been looking at the possibility of outsourcing IT activities for a year and recently informed staff of the outcome of this operation.
In total Shell employs 108,000 people in 130 countries.
In an interview with Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant earlier this month, Shell’s chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, said that production costs had risen 65% in two years.

For more information