Capgemini does a lot of work for HM Revenue & Customs on what is known as the Aspire contract at its Telford site in the Midlands.

But the government agency said it has a clause that stipulates all work must be done in the UK.

Capgemini declined to reveal how many foreign workers are employed on work for HMRC.

A spokesman said: 'The contract further mandates Capgemini to deploy the best staff from across the globe to support delivery in the UK.'

HMRC said: 'How Capgemini resource their business is up to them.'

This practice seems astonishing when unemployment tops 2.2m, and every day more skilled British workers are given their marching orders.

Unfortunately, there seems to be an increasing trend towards this kind of 'outskilling', where UK workers are being supplanted by cheap imports.

Offshoring used to mean sending fairly menial call centre and back office roles to Bangalore or Hyderabad in India.

But the tide is also now sweeping up skilled, higher-grade roles such as IT programming, software design, and human resources.

And there is no sign yet that the practice is about to stop any time soon.

A Capgemini insider said: 'In the last few months there has been a massive influx of Indian workers.

'These assignments usually last for a few years, then individuals will go back home only to be replaced by another Indian worker.'

The source also said Capgemini's British contract workers were recently asked to take a 15pc wage cut, and were told the pay cut would be taken into account when contract renewals were offered.

'It seems that most if not all contractors will be replaced by Indian staff in October anyway, regardless of whether they took a pay cut or not,' the source added.

State-backed Lloyds Banking Group has also come under increasing pressure from unions to explain why it continues to outsource jobs when it is 43.4pc owned by the taxpayer.

This newspaper previously revealed that Lloyds (down 2.35p at 65.9p) is flying in hundreds of Indian IT workers to work on long-term projects in Britain, displacing domestic contractors.

But we have since learned that the so-called 'Bank of Britain' offshored its CHAPS (Clearing House Automated Payment System) operation to India last year.

This system helps the bank's clients, ranging from large corporationsto local councils, transfer payment to their suppliers on the same day for a small fee of £25.

A former Lloyds employee told us the lender warned staff they were not to tell customers that these payments were now being processed from the subcontinent.

The source said: 'We were under strict instructions not to tell customers that the work is being done offshore.

'If the service Lloyds offers offshore is so good, why isn't the bank telling people about it?'

A Lloyds spokesman said: 'We use offshore resources to help process some payment requests and have been doing so since 2008.

The bank's unions have urged the government to force Lloyds to bring the 4,500 jobs it currently has offshore, back to Britain.

A spokesman for UKFI, which manages the taxpayer's stake in Lloyds, said: 'We don't engage in the commercial decision-making of the bank.'

One suspects these two examples are just the tip of a rather large iceberg that not only threatens the job security of thousands of expendable British workers, but the wider economy as well.

source: www.dailymail.co.uk