Lastminute.com has axed around a dozen IT jobs after deciding to export tech jobs to Argentina.

Staff at the dotcom outfit were stunned when they were told of the move. One insider told us: "They've made their tech ops department redundant and sold their jobs to Argentina."

In a statement, the company confirmed that it had made "a small number" of redundancies.

"Lastminute.com confirms it has made a small number of its technical support team redundant and is outsourcing their functions to a company in Argentina.

"The amount of people affected makes up less than 1 per cent of our total global team [about 1,450 in all].

"This is a carefully considered initiative, which we believe will significantly improve the service quality in these functions," it said.

Lastminute.com added that the decision was "based on business performance criteria" and insisted that it plans to "increase the number of permanent UK based people in tech during this year". ®