Big four banks slash 250,000 jobs since crisis
BRITAIN’S biggest banks have cut their headcount by 200,000 since the crisis, their latest figures show, and expect to cut at least 50,000 more over the coming years as new technologies reduce the need for front-line staff.
The big four have slashed their workforce, cutting costs and selling off overseas units in a bid to stay competitive in a newly regulated environment.
The move is likely to be permanent, as fewer customers go into branches and more use mobile banking apps.
In 2008 the big four banks employed 801,000 people. By 2013 that had fallen to 601,000, according to the lenders’ full year financial reports.
The biggest fall came at RBS. It employed 199,800 staff globally in 2008 and has so far cut 81,200 of those positions – 40.6 per cent of its workforce.
More is to come, with up to 40,000 expected to go in the coming years.
HSBC lost the next largest number of staff, cuttings its headcount by 58,800 to 254,066, a fall of 18.8 per cent.
Much of those came as the group sold off businesses in dozens of countries around the world, rather than from direct redundancies.
Lloyds is next in line, cutting its headcount from 132,000 in 2009 after its merger with HBOS to 88,977 now – a fall of 32.6 per cent.
And Barclays cut the least, losing 16,400 of its 156,000 employees from 2008, amounting to 10.5 per cent.
However, it is planning to cut up to 12,000 staff worldwide this year, in part because it is cutting branch numbers and automating more of its systems.