Union fears 40,000 City job losses

THE BANKING Insurance and Finance Union has revised upwards its estimates of job losses in the financial sector, amid expectations that redundancies in the Lloyd's insurance market will climb to 20,000 in the next year, writes John Moore.

The union had been expecting job losses of the order of 30,000 in the next three years throughout the financial community.

But, following disclosures in the Independent on Sunday about the possible extent of job losses within Lloyd's, it now believes that losses could exceed 40,000 and could climb to 50,000 in the three-year period.

The union estimates that since 1989 job losses in the securities industry have run at 20,000, while there have been 70,000 in the banking and building society sectors since 1990.

'No part of the finance industry is immune from recession,' a spokesman for the union said.

He added: 'There is no end in sight for the recession and the scale of job losses is extremely worrying.'

Last week Lloyd's announced that it was shedding more than 27 per cent of its administrative staff, reducing it to 1,600.