Lloyds to cut 1,340 jobs in UK to boost profits

Bloomberg

Lloyds Banking Group Plc, Britain’s largest mortgage lender, will eliminate about 1,340 jobs as part of a cost-cutting program that started in October 2014, according to a labor union.
The move is part of a plan to pare about 12,000 roles by 2017, the Accord labor union, which represents the bank’s employees, said in a statement Wednesday. The job losses bring cuts to about 8,680 so far, and are in divisions such as retail banking, mortgage lending, technology and risk operations, Accord said. Lloyds, which employs about 74,117 in total, will create 110 new roles as it seeks to move some people to other positions.
Chief Executive Officer Antonio Horta-Osorio deepened job cuts in July as he strives to offset evaporating income from lending amid record low interest rates in the wake of the U.K.’s Brexit vote. Meanwhile, the government, which owns 9 percent of the bank, restarted selling shares in the company last week below the average price paid in its 20.3 billion-pound ($24.9 billion) rescue of the lender during the financial crisis.
“We’re deeply concerned that both the scale and the pace of job reductions are increasing,” Accord General Secretary Ged Nichols said in the statement. “This ‘death by a thousand cuts’ approach does nothing to give confidence to those who will be staying with the business.”
Lloyds has slumped 27 percent this year in London trading, marking the second-worst performance among major British lenders behind Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc.