Lloyds announces 5,000 job cuts

00002_80.jpg  Lloyds Banking Group is to cut 5,000 more jobs by the end of next year as it continues to reduce overlap following its merger with HBOS last year.

Some of these cuts are temporary staff, but Lloyds said 2,600 permanent jobs would be lost in the UK.

Most of the cuts will come in its operations unit, which includes IT, collections and payment services.

The union Unite accused the bank of "corporate arrogance" and short-termism following the announcement.

Lloyds has now announced more than 10,000 job cuts so far this year.

"We will continue to work closely with our colleagues affected by today’s announcement to help them through these changes over the coming year," said Mark Fisher, a group director at Lloyds.

“ The scale of changes announced today will leave many staff in shock ”
Ged Nichols, Accord union general secretary

"We have mitigated the impact on positions through redeployment and the release of contractors and temporary staff."

The bank said there would be a total reduction of 2,820 jobs in the operations division.

Of those, 720 roles are being redeployed and another 750 of the total cuts are expected to be achieved through shedding contractors and temporary staff, including 550 offshore positions. This will result in a net reduction of 1,350 jobs.

Other divisions being cut back are insurance, where there will be a net loss of 940 jobs, and retail, resulting in a net reduction of 270 jobs in mortgage operations.

LLOYDS JOB LOSSES 2009
# 10 November: 5,000 by the end of 2010
# 25 August: 250
# 16 July: 1,200, mainly from IT support and insurance services
# 30 June: 2,100 over the next three years
# 3 June: 520
# 21 May: 210, from telephone and digital banking services
# 19 May: 625
# 23 April: 985 over next two years
# Total: 10,890

‘Corporate arrogance’

The Unite union reacted angrily to the news.

"This announcement demonstrates the depth of corporate arrogance within this taxpayer-supported bank," said Rob MacGregor, Unite’s national officer.

"This country’s financial sector should be looking towards the future, rather than continuing to slash jobs without proper consideration of how to rebuild the public’s confidence in our tarnished banking sector."

Last week, Lloyds, which is 43%-owned by the taxpayer, said it would receive another £5.7bn in taxpayer support from the Treasury and sell at least 600 branches.

Fellow bailed-out bank Royal Bank of Scotland also announced last week that it would cut almost 4,000 retail banking jobs across the UK.

Accord, the union that represents the largest number of former HBOS employees now working in Lloyds, said the job cuts were "terrible news" for employees.

"We always recognised that some job losses were inevitable as Lloyds TSB integrated HBOS operations, but the scale of changes announced today will leave many staff in shock," said Accord’s general secretary Ged Nichols.

Source: BBC News

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