Fresh fears of job cuts in the banking industry were raised on Tuesday night after it emerged Barclays could close a quarter of its high street branches in coming years.
As Lloyds Banking Group axed half of the relationship managers handling queries from small businesses as part of more than 1,300 redundancies, there were expectations Barclays could also cut jobs from its branches and its investment bank.
Under new boss Antony Jenkins, Barclays is thought likely to remove managing directors from the investment bank, already the target of more than 1,600 reductions a year ago, when it publishes its results next month.
The potential for new cuts at Barclays came after it emerged that Jenkins had demanded a clampdown on company travel to save costs.
Jenkins is already thought to be eyeing 40,000 job reductions in coming years as technology replaces jobs, and it is thought that increasing use of technology could result in 400 branch closures in the next five years or so.
Barclays would not comment on Tuesday night, but in his presentations to City analysts Jenkins makes regular references to technology, which has already led to a 10% reduction in the use of branches in five years and cut call volumes in call centres.
All banks are known to be weighing up the impact of technology on their operations, although branch closures can be particularly sensitive.
The latest cuts at Lloyds are part of 15,000 redundancies announced by boss António Horta-Osório when he took the top job three years ago. Some 11,760 of those roles have now gone, on top of an estimated 30,000 roles lost when Lloyds rescued HBOS in the financial crisis of 2008.
Of the latest round of job cuts, about 560 are relationship managers working in the commercial banking arm and with small businesses, which is half of the team in an area being closely watched by politicians concerned about the lack of lending to small businesses.
Another 220 roles are being removed by the wealth management division, with the rest spread across the rest of the bank, which is also outsourcing 310 roles involved in postal services.
The job cuts angered trade unions at a time when Lloyds is aiming to start paying dividends to shareholders for the first time since the banking crisis with a view to allowing the government to sell off the rest of its stake.
The first tranche of shares was sold in September. Ged Nichols of the Accord union said: "Employees in the Lloyds Banking Group are not sharing fairly in this rising prosperity.
The salaries of loyal and hardworking bank staff haven't kept pace with inflation in recent years, the bank has proposed cutbacks on pensions, variable pay has been reduced for many, yet the jobs haemorrhage continues.
"It's about time the bank matched its treatment of staff to its aspiration to be Britain's most trusted bank. The trust that the workforce has in management is being seriously undermined and it's time to restore the balance."
Officials at the Unite union noted that Horta-Osório had been handed shares worth £2.3m as a result of the rise in the share price last year.
"Unite will continue to oppose these job losses and has sought an urgent meeting with Lloyds to outline the union's concerns.
Unite remains adamant that as the bank continues to align its recovery to the UK's economic recovery, it is totally unacceptable that it persists in putting pressure on the public purse by making hundreds of jobs redundant on a bi-monthly basis," said Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer.
Lloyds said it would handle the job cuts sensitively and said a third of the 11,760 roles hit by the bank's cost-cutting programme had required compulsory redundancy. "We are committed to offering the best possible service to our SME clients," the bank said.
"All of our clients will continue to have the support of specialist business managers, and for our smallest clients, in addition to branch staff, managers based in our central teams," the bank said, adding it was investing in IT.
theguardian.com
As Lloyds Banking Group axed half of the relationship managers handling queries from small businesses as part of more than 1,300 redundancies, there were expectations Barclays could also cut jobs from its branches and its investment bank.
Under new boss Antony Jenkins, Barclays is thought likely to remove managing directors from the investment bank, already the target of more than 1,600 reductions a year ago, when it publishes its results next month.
The potential for new cuts at Barclays came after it emerged that Jenkins had demanded a clampdown on company travel to save costs.
Jenkins is already thought to be eyeing 40,000 job reductions in coming years as technology replaces jobs, and it is thought that increasing use of technology could result in 400 branch closures in the next five years or so.
Barclays would not comment on Tuesday night, but in his presentations to City analysts Jenkins makes regular references to technology, which has already led to a 10% reduction in the use of branches in five years and cut call volumes in call centres.
All banks are known to be weighing up the impact of technology on their operations, although branch closures can be particularly sensitive.
The latest cuts at Lloyds are part of 15,000 redundancies announced by boss António Horta-Osório when he took the top job three years ago. Some 11,760 of those roles have now gone, on top of an estimated 30,000 roles lost when Lloyds rescued HBOS in the financial crisis of 2008.
Of the latest round of job cuts, about 560 are relationship managers working in the commercial banking arm and with small businesses, which is half of the team in an area being closely watched by politicians concerned about the lack of lending to small businesses.
Another 220 roles are being removed by the wealth management division, with the rest spread across the rest of the bank, which is also outsourcing 310 roles involved in postal services.
The job cuts angered trade unions at a time when Lloyds is aiming to start paying dividends to shareholders for the first time since the banking crisis with a view to allowing the government to sell off the rest of its stake.
The first tranche of shares was sold in September. Ged Nichols of the Accord union said: "Employees in the Lloyds Banking Group are not sharing fairly in this rising prosperity.
The salaries of loyal and hardworking bank staff haven't kept pace with inflation in recent years, the bank has proposed cutbacks on pensions, variable pay has been reduced for many, yet the jobs haemorrhage continues.
"It's about time the bank matched its treatment of staff to its aspiration to be Britain's most trusted bank. The trust that the workforce has in management is being seriously undermined and it's time to restore the balance."
Officials at the Unite union noted that Horta-Osório had been handed shares worth £2.3m as a result of the rise in the share price last year.
"Unite will continue to oppose these job losses and has sought an urgent meeting with Lloyds to outline the union's concerns.
Unite remains adamant that as the bank continues to align its recovery to the UK's economic recovery, it is totally unacceptable that it persists in putting pressure on the public purse by making hundreds of jobs redundant on a bi-monthly basis," said Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer.
Lloyds said it would handle the job cuts sensitively and said a third of the 11,760 roles hit by the bank's cost-cutting programme had required compulsory redundancy. "We are committed to offering the best possible service to our SME clients," the bank said.
"All of our clients will continue to have the support of specialist business managers, and for our smallest clients, in addition to branch staff, managers based in our central teams," the bank said, adding it was investing in IT.
theguardian.com
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