BARCLAYS Bank yesterday refused to be drawn on reports that it would
announce a further 3000 job losses this week, in addition to the 15,000
staff it is already in the process of shedding.
The rumoured cuts come in the wake of 3500 redundancies at the Royal
Bank of Scotland, announced last week.
Meanwhile, the Banking Insurance and Finance Union (Bifu) predicted a
further 25,000 jobs were at risk in the financial sector, on top of the
70,000 redundancies in the past three years.
About half Barclays' existing job-cutting programme will be completed
this year with the remaining redundancies coming into effect by 1995.
So far, all have been through natural wastage and voluntary
redundancy.
The bank's network of 2400 branches is being cut at the rate of 150 a
year until around 1900 remain by 1995.
Barclays chief executive, Mr Andrew Buxton, warned earlier this month
that a ''significantly'' faster rate of branch closures would lead to
further job cuts.
A spokesman for Barclays yesterday refused to comment on the rumoured
cuts, but said: ''The closure of branches does not mean we are
abandoning the High Street. It is a major part of our activities.''
In August, chairman Sir John Quinton warned that the recession could
last a further two years as Barclays revealed the slump had cost it more
than #1000m in bad debt provision -- particularly against property.
The bank made profits before tax of just #51m in the half-year to
June, in sharp contrast to #378m in the comparative period in 1991.
Bifu spokesman Mr Noel Howell said yesterday: ''There is a job carnage
going on in the High Street -- and the finance sector was supposed to
replace jobs lost in manufacturing in the 1980s.''
Labour yesterday stepped up its demand for urgent Government action
over unemployment amid the rumours about Barclays.
Shadow Chancellor Gordon Brown said that there must now be a summit of
Government departments to examine emergency job schemes.
He said in a statement: ''As Britain braces itself for yet another
round of mounting job losses and worrying trade deficit figures out
tomorrow, it is time for the Prime Minister to act with a new emergency
jobs programme. That should be set in place before Christmas.
''I understand that more banking jobs are at risk tomorrow. The
alarming scale of this new wave of redundancies is something Ministers
must now wake up to and has already cost 40,000 jobs this month and
threatens 250,000 more over the winter months.''
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article