Those financial wizards at the London office of US firm Arnold and Porter have found an ingenious way to cut costs: by halving the pay of its support staff!

The firm announced a couple of weeks ago that it would be offering a voluntary redundancy package to its secretarial staff across the globe. The firm said that with electronic documentation there was less of a need for secretarial services, and it was "constantly analyzing and evaluating changes in the way we provide support services to both our internal and external clients". The fact that its revenues fell 6% last year surely had nothing to do with the decision.

    Arnold and porter yesterday

But staff in London have now been hit even harder. An insider says that they are all being forced to reapply for their jobs, and those that are successful face a cut of up to 50% in their salaries. Presumably this achieves the same saving as hiving off jobs to Glasgow or Belfast, but with the happy benefit of retaining staff on site (if they can still afford their train fares with enough left over for some gruel at lunchtime).

A spokesman refused to comment.
 
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Comments

Anonymous 14 March 14 11:08

No wonder a spokesman refused to comment they should be ashamed, no loyalty whatsoever to their staff!

Anonymous 14 March 14 15:58

They have totally screwed their secretarial staff. Hope they all get the redundancy and then get jobs where they can be appreciated!

Anonymous 14 March 14 18:03

Heard this firm treated their secretaries like second class citizens but this is disgusting. Shameful.