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By Andrew MacAskill and Lawrence White
LONDON, May 16 (Reuters) - HSBC, Europe's largestbank, was to begin laying off 850 information technology workersin Britain on Monday, the first big tranche of redundanciesunder a restructuring plan that will eliminate 8,000 Britishjobs by the end of next year.
Most of the staff affected were being informed about thecuts on Monday, according to sources who asked not to beidentified because they were not authorised to discuss the planspublicly.
The employees are based in London, Sheffield, Leeds andBirmingham and all the jobs will disappear by the end of thisyear, the sources said.
HSBC declined to comment.
The bank unveiled its three-year restructuring plan lastyear, designed to pare back its sprawling global network byshutting underperforming businesses to improve earnings hurt byhigh compliance costs, fines and low interest rates.
The restructuring will eventually eliminate one job in fivearound the world and around a sixth of jobs in Britain.
When the restructuring plan was announced, Chief ExecutiveOfficer Stuart Gulliver said most of the job losses in Britainwould come from employees leaving on their own accord.
HSBC has 47,000 UK workers at the end of December, accordingto its most recent annual report. More cuts are expected overthe coming months as the bank continues to consolidate IT andback office operations, the sources said. (Reporting By Andrew MacAskill, additional reporting byLawrence White, editing by Sinead Cruise and Peter Graff)
