Lloyds Banking Group restructuring plans to cull 900 more jobs

Nigeria Sun Tuesday 7th February, 2012

London - Part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group Tuesday announced plans to cut 900 jobs as part of wider plans unveiled last year to cull 15,000 posts across the company.

The banking group, which following the financial crisis in 2008 is 40% owned by the UK government, has said it hopes to redeploy the affected staff elsewhere in the business.

The organisation plans to eliminate positions through natural turnover and voluntary redundancy, keeping compulsory redundancies as "a last resort", a spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said in a statement.

According to the Lloyds, during the last three years, "slightly less than 50% of the role reductions made as part of integration have led to people leaving the group through redundancy. There are 990 role reductions from today's announcement."

Assuring that all the affected staff members have been briefed by their line managers, the official statement clarified that the decision to reduce staff have been taken in consultation with the recognized unions.

"The group's recognised unions Accord, LTU, GMB and Unite were consulted prior to this announcement."

More than 28,000 jobs have been cut since the merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS in 2008, during the global financial crisis.

Last year in June, plans to further eliminate 15,000 posts was announced, a move described as devastating by the unions.

Most of the jobs sought to be restructured pertain to the Lloyds' group operations, executive functions, risk, wholesale and insurance divisions.

David Fleming, national officer of Unite, pointed out that the official statement did not clarify the "full requirement of the group's divestment."

Announcing plans to hold further talks with the organization, Fleming said the employers must "do more to offer redeployment opportunities to their workers."

Newcastle, Romford and Scunthorpe are some of the areas that are set to be affected by the restructuring plans, with as many as 500 likely to be made redundant with the closure of administration sites.

The group is still to finalize where to eliminate further posts as part of its restructuring exercise.

Accord union general secretary Ged Nichols stressed that "even those who volunteer to go will find it difficult to find alternative employment in these difficult economic times."