RBS to axe up to 2,300 jobs

By Alan Jones, Press Association

Tuesday, 10 February 2009

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Royal Bank of Scotland is to restructure its business with the loss of up to 2,300 jobs, the company announced today.

RBS said the cuts would not affect customer-facing branch staff and pledged to make every effort to keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum.

The bank, now 68 per cent-owned by the Government, said the cuts represent around 2 per cent of the group's workforce of 106,000.

Alan Dickinson, chief executive of RBS UK, said: "We recognise that any news of this nature is unwelcome at any time. It is essential, however, that we consistently review our business to ensure that we are able to operate as efficiently as possible, especially in the current economic circumstances.

"We will be consulting with our recognised trade union, Unite, and our employees throughout. We fully agree with Unite that we must keep compulsory redundancies to a minimum and we will.

"Everyone at RBS is focused on delivering for our customers and restoring the health of the overall organisation. Staff have given everything they have over the last year, which makes the decision to cut any job an extremely tough one.

"We will do everything we can to mitigate the impact on our people and keep job losses and compulsory redundancies to the minimum."

Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, referring to apologies given by RBS and HBOS bosses before a committee of MPs today, said: "On the day that sorry appears to be the easiest word for the bosses, 2,300 employees are left paying the price for management mistakes.

"The announcement by Royal Bank of Scotland that they plan to cut thousands of jobs marks a disastrous day for staff at the bank and represents a further blow to workers across the financial services sector.

"These job losses reflect the reality of the credit crunch, where staff face the ultimate penalty in the form of their jobs, while the senior bankers, who played Monopoly with the money of established finance companies, simply walk away with bumper pay-offs.

"Unite remains opposed to any possible compulsory redundancies as a result of this restructuring plan. The priority, through continued consultation, is now to ensure that every endeavour is made by RBS to avoid any such redundancies.

"The union will continue to campaign to retain vital financial sector jobs which must remain an essential element in the UK's strategy to emerge from this economic downturn."

Comments

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Crunch time

n_s_eakins wrote:

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 04:51 pm (UTC)

When any sector experiences a downturn analysts advise companies merge. I wonder how icommerce is coping with this depression.

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where the axe should fall

alterkocker wrote:

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 05:00 pm (UTC)

Before the axe gets too blunt, it should first fall on the necks of all the senior personnel who got us all into this mess.

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RBS Job losses

polly_pretty wrote:

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 at 06:49 pm (UTC)

The Union states that they are against job losses, yet negotiated the move of work to India from Manchester and London(where people lost their jobs)

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Government Bank Offshores work to India

job_less wrote:

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 at 01:19 pm (UTC)

So does it not matter that these people are not customer facing and only back Office staff?

They are still UK employees and as this bank is now owned by the government (tax payer) this means the government are laying them off.

The so called restructure basically means moving jobs offshore to India to RBS's new back office centres in Chennai and Gurgaon. They pass these off as inherited ABN Amro offices but they have all been kitted out and ramped up since October (when we bailed them out with the first load of money).

So as well as all of the IT work that RBS offshored over the last few years meaning we have thousands of umemployed IT professionals they now do the same with the back office work.

Dont worry though they wont do it with call centres!! Otherwise they would have to change the TV Ads.

How can Gordon Brown allow all of this to happen and then talk about his campaign for jobs. Surely the government should be pressurising them to lose jobs outside of the UK first after all this is now owned by the tax payer.

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Why is RBS acting against the interests of British taxpayers?

tony_was_here wrote:

Wednesday, 11 February 2009 at 01:41 pm (UTC)

Ed Balls said these were "seismic events that are going to change the political landscape". Meanwhile, that well known taxpayer owned bank, RBS, is busy exporting jobs to Asia. These are not fat cat bankers but modestly paid backroom clerical jobs.

When unemployment is soaring it is crazy to throw British workers on to the dole to send the money to Asia!! Less money in our country = less tax revenues, even more unemployed and a worse balance of trade.

Is there any way at all this makes sense for Britain?? Does the current RBS chief executive, Stephen Hester, even care??

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