News

The reduction of Barclays staff by 500 brings the total number of redundancies in the UK finance sector this week to more than 4,550, after Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, and collapsed DIY retailer Focus, also released details of significant layoffs.



David Fleming, national officer of the UNI Finance affiliate UNITE, said: "The news today that Barclays is to cut 500 staff marks this as a disastrous week for the UK's financial services sector. The sector is haemorrhaging jobs. Every day this week massive groups of staff in processing centres, bank branches and call centres across the country have been told their futures are uncertain. What does this do for the chances of economic recovery?"



Royal Bank of Scotland announced the loss of 690 jobs on Tuesday, with 500 of the redundancies relating to the closure of its debt management and fraud office in Telford. The following day, Lloyds said it would cut another 360 jobs across its insurance, retail and wholesale banking operations and transfer 140 more insurance staff to State Street, a US investment firm with close ties to Lloyds.



At Focus, the redundancies were more severe still, after administrators of the chain confirmed on Wednesday that about 3,000 jobs will go after they failed to find a buyer for the loss-making chain.



Barclays declined to comment on its latest job losses on Thursday, except for issuing a short statement.

"As part of the ongoing transformation of Barclays Corporate, we are making some changes to our business in order to optimise growth opportunities and control costs. Regrettably this means a slight reduction in our UK workforce," the statement said.

Barclays is understood to be working to ensure that the vast majority of the back-office job losses can be achieved through voluntary redundancy.



Source: UNITE the UNION and The Guardian