PART STATE-OWNED British banks Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland announced 1,900 job losses yesterday. The move angered the Unite trade union which said it had written to the government urging intervention.
Lloyds said it was cutting 1,600 positions as part of a plan announced last year to cut 15,000 jobs and halve the group’s international presence.
RBS said it was cutting some 300 jobs, with the reduction of 464 posts offset by 150 new jobs elsewhere. Lloyds and RBS said they would try and keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.
“We are working hard to rebuild RBS in order to repay taxpayers for their support and having to cut jobs is the most difficult part of this process,” said RBS.
Lloyds said that of the 1,600 affected positions, it was transferring some 300 workers over to its suppliers, meaning that they would still have a job.
Britain owns about 82 per cent of RBS and 40 per cent of Lloyds after bailing out both banks with taxpayers’ money during the 2008 credit crisis.
Since the crisis, RBS has cut 34,000 jobs while Lloyds has cut about 30,000. – (Reuters)
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