North East to escape Lloyds job cuts

Jul 1 2009 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

THE North East look set to escape the latest round of job losses announced by the Lloyds Banking Group.

The nationalised bank yesterday announced it would be axing a further 2,100 jobs on top of the 5,000 it has axed already this year as it looks to slash overheads following its merger with HBOS last year.

A Lloyds spokesman told the Journal the main areas effected would be Scotland, the Midlands and Yorkshire.

“The job cuts are mainly affecting our offices which offer many of our support functions and there are no main offices of these kind in the North East.”

The latest round of job cuts will see 1,400 posts axed from its operations division and a further 700 from its wholesale division.

However Lloyds said it would be creating 350 new roles in its commercial, corporate, finance and risk operations and said 700 of the role reductions would be achieved through natural wastage and terminating the contracts of agency staff.

The Unite union said it was “astonished“ at the new job losses, saying “real questions“ now had to be asked about how far the bank can be allowed to go in its “systematic” slashing of staff.

Rob MacGregor, Unite’s national officer, said: “This loss of over 2,000 jobs marks the largest single job loss announcement since the formation of Lloyds Banking Group in January.

“This Labour Government cannot afford to turn the other way as bank workers across the country are losing their jobs. This horrendous news brings the total of job losses since January in LBG to over 7,000.

“The thousands of staff in the commercial and group operations areas who are hit by this announcement will be seeking a commitment from the bank that there will be no compulsory redundancies.”

A spokesman for Lloyds said: “The plans outlined to colleagues involve the Group combining several heritage Lloyds TSB and HBOS operational support functions, including payment and business services and banking operations.

“These teams ensure the smooth running of the group on a day to day basis for the company's customers. By bringing together these functions the Group will build a flexible infrastructure to deliver streamlined technology and process support across the company.”

Lloyds said the announcement would affect 350 jobs in Scotland, 150 in West Yorkshire, 100 in Birmingham, 42 in Chester and 42 in Speke.

Other cuts will be in one job in Barnstaple, 16 in Exeter, 14 in Lincoln, 11 in Plymouth and five in Yeovil.