The Bank of Bermuda cut 38 jobs on Thursday, telling those affected their redundancies will not take effect until the end of the year.

The announcement brings to 80 the total number of jobs phased out at the bank since its $1.3 billion buy-out a year ago by multinational banking giant HSBC Plc.

The bank this month celebrated its first year under HSBC with CEO Philip Butterfield sharing cake ? decorated in HSBC colours and logo ? with customers in the main banking hall on Friday.

The bank, which had offices around the globe prior to the sale, has seen its staff numbers shrink in Bermuda and world-wide from some 1,800 before the sale to a current head count of 1,036.

The bank said that of the 42 redundancies already made effective, 24 of the cuts were to jobs held by Bermudians.

The majority of the jobs phased out have been from "support areas", the bank said.

The latest round of redundancies are coming from the bank's operations division, the department managing the bank's computer systems.

A bank spokesperson said: "Over the past year the bank has very clearly communicated to staff and to the community that redundancies would be an inevitable result of the bank's integration with HSBC and that this would be an ongoing process.

At this time, 38 positions in the Bermuda operations division will be made redundant with the earliest redundancies effective 1 December 2005."

The redundancies were said to be the "direct result of the bank's business lines adopting HSBC systems and processing models".

Although more redundancies are in the pipeline ? the bank said at the time of the sale there could be up to 250 jobs cut from its Bermuda operations over a three-year period ? the bank has said it will try and place people seeing their jobs axed in other posts, where possible.

Currently the human resources division is said to be working with the latest 38 to be made redundant, to explore other employment opportunities within the bank.

Although the bank has been cutting jobs, it has also been hiring. In total, 184 new positions ? including 21 held by work-permit holders ? have been created since the bank's sale to HSBC. Another 158 staff have left for their own reasons.

"As we progress with the integration with HSBC, redundancies will continue to be an ongoing process; however, the growth of the bank's business areas will continue to create new positions and provide new opportunities," the bank spokesperson said.