Norton Rose Fulbright moves 170 jobs to the Philippines

Norton Rose Fulbright is set to make redundancies in the UK as it moves 170 jobs to the Philippines.

5% of the firm's business services jobs are to be relocated to a new 'global service centre' in Manila by September. It will cover marketing, business development, HR, learning & development, knowledge management, libraries, document production, finance, IT, and compliance functions, meaning staff in most NRF support terms have good cause to be nervous.

COO Mark Whitley said the firm made the decision "after a thorough review of the delivery of our world-wide business service model". Most large firms are looking to offshore work in some way to improve efficiency and boost profits, and foreign support centres are the latest thing. Last week DLA Piper confirmed it was making 200 non-fee-earners redundant in the UK as part of a plan to transfer its business support roles to Warsaw. And Dentons has just announced that it is following DLA to Warsaw and axing 50 support staff roles in the UK. It's a dangerous time to be a non fee-earner at an international firm.

Offshoring in action

Whitley said the firm was having to take "some tough decisions regarding our people", but insisted that "we will do everything we can to provide support to those affected". 'Tough decisions' means 'redundancies', and a consultation process is set to begin shortly. Unlike DLA and Dentons, the firm declined to confirm how many jobs are at risk.

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Comments

"offshoring to improve efficiency and boost profits". Let's be quite clear it is wholly about profit. Centralisation MIGHT improve efficiency but that has nothing to do with where it is located

A UK firm, such as itself, should have a responsibility to its employees and its country that helped it thrive. The company woud not be as is without the UK and abandoning 5% of its workforce to simply cut cost is unacceptable. Why not take a dock fromm the CEO pay? because the lower paid, yet most important workers do not matter to these rich. Here's hoping that this bad decision nly affects the rich bosses of the company and not the workers. May all the 170 find better jobs.

It will be an unmitigated disaster and I give it 2 yrs before it's all moved back.

Why will it be a disaster? Because British people are inherently better than johnny foreigner?

"Here's hoping that this bad decision nly affects the rich bosses of the company and not the workers. May all the 170 find better jobs. "

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you bet it will affect the rich bosses. It means more £££ for the partners. Yay! And as for those 170 finding better jobs, maybe the partners can use their increased profits to employ them as cleaners, chauffeurs and valets? Happy times!

These things often cause more problems than they're worth. Ask A&O whose offshoring of their document production department has been hither and thither for years. It's probably been half way around the world by now.

Great news for one of the most under-developed parts of the world!

Truly, the people who get those jobs will be "bossing the dolla" in the Philippines!

Multi-millionaire City partners and their wannabes firing staff so they can get a bit richer & maybe, if they're feeling generous, reward a handful of greedy paper pushers by firing 175 workers & employing their replacements on $2,500 per year.