Union leaders' fury as Lloyds set to shed another 1,300 jobs

UNION leaders reacted with anger yesterday to the "terrible news" that Lloyds is to axe another 1,300 jobs.

The Accord union said banks had cut 30,000 jobs since 2009. General secretary Ged Nichols, right, said the jobs will go mainly in the banking giant's risk and corporate divisions across the UK.

He said: "This announcement, which is the first tranche of the extra 15,000 job losses forecast in LBG's recent Strategic Review, means that the bank has shed 30,000 jobs since February 2009 and the impact on employee morale of these incessant job cuts is what you would expect.

"Accord has informed LBG that it must do everything possible to avoid compulsory redundancies and work with us to provide support and guidance to those affected."

David Fleming, national officer of the Unite union, said: "This latest decision is astonishing and will send ripples of shock across the entire business as it signifies the reality and misery that faces hard-working staff. More than 1,000 staff from the Lloyds business functions in risk, insurance, retail, wealth and international, operations and corporate affairs have today been informed that there will be cuts in their area."

Lloyds Banking said 1,120 of the job losses were announced in the group's strategic review in June when new chief executive Antonio Horta-Osorio said the state-controlled bank would shed 15,000 jobs by 2014 to save 1.5 billion.

The remaining 180 are part of the group's ongoing three-year integration programme following the 2009 merger between Lloyds and HBOS, which is due to end this year. Almost 45,000 roles will have been lost following the merger of the two banks once the latest job cuts are completed.