Lloyds to cut up to 1,000 jobs as part of restructuring

Lloyds Banking Group said Thursday it plans to cut up to 1,000 jobs across its operations as part of a restructuring it announced a year ago.

The staff affected work in Lloyds’ retail, commercial banking and consumer finance teams as well as some back office divisions.

“The group's policy is always to use natural turnover and to redeploy people wherever possible to retain their expertise and knowledge within the group," said Lloyds, which is looking to cut around 9,000 jobs by 2017.

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy. Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort."

Rob MacGregor, national officer of Unite, said: "Once again we see Lloyds Bank seeking to make short-term 'savings' at the expense of both the workforce and customer service.

"Unite's overriding concern is to challenge and avoid any compulsory redundancies. Following negotiations the bank has committed to providing alternative jobs, voluntary redundancy and voluntary job swapping where possible.”

At 1440 GMT, Lloyds shares were up 0.9% to 72.82p.