LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell plans to contract out thousands of jobs as part of a shake-up aimed at saving 500 mln usd annually, an industry source said.

Shell estimates it will outsource 'near to 3,000' of its 4,200 global information technology posts, of which about 1,700 of the former figure are occupied by directly employed Shell staff, to three companies, the source told Thomson Financial News.

BT Group PLC is believed to be one of the front runners for the contract.

The plan is part of an ongoing efficiency exercise to simplify Shell on which the oil company has been working since 2005.

A Shell spokeswoman declined to confirm the job figures, although she said the company was talking to 'a number of key suppliers' about outsourcing its IT operations and expects to sign contracts sometime in the first half of 2008.

'There will be an announcement made in 2008,' she said. She said it was too early to say whether there would be job cuts or staff transfers to contractors.

The company is also looking at restructuring its finance operations and developing its regional service centre network, which has allowed it to consolidate various functions from numerous different locations to single sites.

The group has a hub in Glasgow, which employs about 550 staff covering the group's European operations, and further centres in the Philippines and India.



(Hemscott.com)