HSBC, GSK and Heineken are moving processes from Poland to India
The layoffs mainly affect finance and IT departments. However, Poland's business services sector employs more people than a year ago, it is just looking for different skills.
HSBC laid off 134 people at its Kraków centre in August. In June, 128 people lost their jobs there. The cuts mainly affected the finance department, banking, and risk & compliance, meaning risk management and regulatory compliance. According to media reports, some of these tasks are being taken over by a team in India. Bankier.pl reports that as part of the overall transformation, the bank may lay off around 400 people in Kraków in total. HSBC has not publicly confirmed the full scale.
Other corporations are making similar changes, as reported by pulsHR.pl. Electrolux is transferring some processes from its Kraków finance centre to an outsourcing partner in India: accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR) and general ledger (GL). According to the media, the layoffs may affect up to 200 people, but the company has not confirmed this number. Employees were offered a voluntary redundancy programme.
At GSK in Poznań, more than 500 IT specialists may lose their jobs, as confirmed by Hieronim Marut from NSZZ “Solidarność” at GSK. Mars plans to close its Mars Global Services centre in Poznań by the end of 2027. According to epoznan.pl, around 100 people may lose their jobs, and some positions are to be moved to India. According to unofficial reports from September 2025, Heineken may lay off between 500 and 700 people in Kraków, with tasks expected to be transferred to India in 2026-2027.
Dominika Tarczyk from Michael Page points out that repetitive, transactional and easily standardised tasks are the most exposed to relocation or automation. An example is some AP and AR processes that do not require contact with the business. Safer areas include controlling, FP&A (financial planning and analysis), advanced accounting, and HR functions that require knowledge of the local market and languages. According to Tarczyk, companies most often automate a process first, and only then move what remains to a cheaper location.
Despite this, the whole sector is growing. According to the ABSL report, at the end of Q1 2026 it employed 500.5 thousand people, compared with 488.7 thousand a year earlier. Almost 70 per cent of new projects concern advanced IT services (42.6 per cent) and research and development (26.2 per cent). The share of simple administrative work has fallen by more than 10 percentage points over five years. Sebastian Sala from Antal SSC/BPO says that demand is shifting towards IT, AI, data analysis and hybrid profiles.
For employees of service centres, this means that, according to experts, the least exposed roles are those in which one is responsible for the entire process rather than for a single stage of it.