PRODUCT PROFILE

Latest Dublin Prices

Lloyds Bank to cut 940 British staff

Wednesday, January 23 14:09:41

Lloyds Banking Group said today it was axing 940 jobs, bringing the total amount cut since its ill-fated takeover of HBOS in 2009 to more than 31,000.

Lloyds said the jobs would be lost in its operations, insurance, retail, wealth, international and commercial divisions and were part of the reductions previously announced in its strategic review.

The part-nationalised bank said in June 2011 that it planned to save 1.5 billion pounds by letting 15,000 staff go.

British trade union Unite "expressed fury" over the decision, highlighting the bank's decision to outsource 190 IT jobs as part of the changes.

"It is a complete disgrace that the bank, which is 41 percent owned by the taxpayer, continues to cut jobs in such a cavalier way," Unite said in a statement.

Lloyds said it would look to avoid compulsory redundancies where possible and only use them as a last resort.

"The group's policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort," it said.

Lloyds paid a heavy price for its government engineered takeover of HBOS, requiring a 20 billion pounds state bailout. HBOS was caught out by a near-shutdown of wholesale funding markets, on which it was more reliant than rivals. (C ) Reuters