LONDON: Reuters, the news service and data company, which is trying to meet stringent cost-cutting targets, said on Oct 7 that it would triple the number of employees it has in India by the end of next year.

As many as 1,500 employees, or a tenth of the company’s total, will be in Bangalore by 2006, company executives said during a ceremony toa building in southern India. Reuters already has 340 employees in Bangalore, including about 13 journalists.

The company said it planned to move mainly data and technical jobs to Bangalore. The editorial staff in Bangalore is expected to increase to 50 by early next year, Reuters told union representatives. The company’s chief executive, Tom Glocer, is embracing outsourcing to reduce costs. He foreshadowed the Oct. 7 announcement in September at an investor conference.

“The amazing thing –– and this is the dirty little secret about outsourcing that people need to talk about publicly a bit more –– not only is the cost conflation amazing at four, five or even six to one, but the quality and productivity is better too,” Glocer said in September. “We are flooded. We have 100 qualified applications for every data input person and these people have qualified accounting degrees.”

The company, which now employs 1,000 data-processing workers at about 40 sites worldwide, plans to shift 450 jobs to Bangalore initially, mainly from Tiverton, England; White Plains, N.Y.; and Singapore.

Analysts said that action fits into the company’s greater strategy. “This doesn’t surprise me at all, given the targets they have set for themselves,” said Paul Sullivan, a media analyst at Merrill Lynch in London.

Reuters has pledged to cut costs by £440 million ($782 million) by the end of 2006, and Sullivan said the number was considered “sacrosanct.” Reuters said on Oct. 7 that costs in Bangalore were about 40 percent lower than in New York or London.

The Bangalore office supplies information on companies and debt and equity issues. Later, it will also provide information on mergers, acquisitions and equity pricing.

Union leaders expressed concern about the move, which they said could impair the quality of news and data Reuters offers.