What’s the sentence that comes before your posted sentence? That probably tells you who the word “they” refers to — which will probably help clarify things.
It sounds like the relocating of or outsourcing of entire financial departments (or something like that) is being referred to. And this sort of work had been specifically targeted (maybe for cost-cutting purposes?) because the work is seen as easy to measure and computerize.
Sure, the sentence before was “It is because of this centrality of the city that the financial markets have stayed put.” Thanks, your explaination helped me understanding the meaning of the sentence but I still don’t know how the meaning is conveyed in this particular sentence structure, like if I see this type of sentence structure again, I wouldn’t be able to understand the meaning still. I was just wondering…how would you say “financial work being among the most quantiative and computerized of functions” in another way? Thank you so much.