Lloyds Banking Group reducing headcount - again

Banking giant Lloyds Banking Group is shedding a further 1,200 jobs - just a fortnight after it announced 2,100 jobs would be axed.

The job losses now take the total 8,200, since its hasty merger with HBOS last autumn.

The bank, which is 43% state-owned, said the latest round of job cuts will be lost in IT support and in insurance services (following the merger of its Scottish Widows and Clerical Medical businesses). 220 positions will be axed in Scotland, while West Yorkshire will lose 300 jobs with 110 in Bristol - the remainder will be spread throughout the UK.

After the last round of job losses announced at the end of June, Rob MacGregor of the Unite union said: “Employees across Lloyds are in a permanent state of anxiety as they see their employer announce hundreds of job losses every week.”

Today, however, the Unite union referred to the losses as “groundhog day”, referring to the frequency of the job losses the bank has made since the start of the year.

The Unite union also said: “Unite views the weekly cull of jobs as a disgraceful approach by this taxpayer supported financial institution.”

At the time of the merger with HBOS, analysts said it was inevitable that the integration of the two banking giants were bound to create thousands of jobs losses because of the level of overlap between the two banks.

Analysts have estimated that around 40,000 of its 140,000 workforce may go with the closure of several of its 3,000 branches

Lloyds, however, did point out that it has created 1,200 new roles since the start of the year.

The bank is scheduled to report half-year results at the beginning of next month and is expected to reveal a significant loss on its exposure to the property sector and ongoing bad debts.

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