INSURANCE company Norwich Union will shed 60 jobs at its York offices as part of plans to outsource work to Asia.

The compulsory redundancies, which will also see 70 jobs going in Norwich, follow a decision to export work to India and Sri Lanka, where 950 jobs will be created.

The insurer said job losses in York, announced yesterday, would be in administration processing and would not affect the company's call centre staff.

The latest move comes only three months after the insurer announced it was cutting 150 IT jobs in York.

Aviva, which owns Norwich Union, revealed that by the end of 2007, it will have exported 7,000 jobs servicing its UK businesses.

Union officials warned of a threat to the future of the UK financial services industry.

David Fleming, national officer at Amicus, said: ''Norwich Union have at last revealed their true intentions, which is to reduce the total UK workforce by 25 per cent by 2007.

"This points to a bleak future for the UK financial services industry as a whole."

But a spokesman for Aviva said it expected to conclude its offshoring plans by the end of 2007.

The spokesman said: "We want to make it clear through this announcement that 2007 is our cut-off point and that no more jobs will go abroad after then."

Aviva already employs 3,700 people in India, where average pay for staff working for UK finance companies is £3,000 - a fifth of salaries in the UK.

About 760 of the jobs will be based in India servicing the life and pensions and general insurance businesses in mainly back office administrative roles, while a further 190 finance support jobs will be created in Sri Lanka.

Companies have calculated the total savings of employing staff in India, including other costs, such as pensions and insurance, at 40 per cent.

Tens of thousands of jobs have been moved to India in the past three years by scores of UK companies, including banks, airlines, telecommunications operators.