Fresh cull at Lloyds hits 585
Lloyds Banking Group is to cut another 585 jobs by March next year as part of changes to its wholesale and retail divisions.
The bank – which unions say cut more than 15,500 jobs in 2009 as it tried to reduce costs following its merger with HBOS in 2008 – yesterday said 455 jobs would be lost in its wholesale sector with the closure of its Black
Horse Personal Finance centres across the UK.
A further 130 jobs will also be lost in its retail banking arm as a result of relocation and redeployment, it added.
“Where it is necessary for colleagues to leave the company it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary severance and by making less use of contractors and agency colleagues. Compulsory redundancies will be a last resort,” the bank said in a statement.
But the Unite union criticised the decision and said it hoped the bank’s announcement was not the start of a slew of further job cuts.
“Unite is warning Lloyds not to repeat their approach in 2009 where staff faced death by a thousand cuts as weekly announcements of job losses were made,” said Unite national officer Rob MacGregor.
“The strategy last year has had a devastating effect on staff and created job insecurity for most colleagues.”
The cuts are the first announced in 2010. The bank has refused to say exactly how many jobs it expects to cut as a result of the rescue takeover of HBOS in September 2008.