Layoffs Watch '13: British Banks Are Number One!
When it comes to telling employees to take a long lunch and not come back.
Britain’s four biggest banks will have eliminated about 189,000 jobs by the end of this year from their peak staffing levels, bringing employment to a nine-year low amid a dearth of revenue. More cuts may follow. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Lloyds Banking Group Plc, and Barclays Plc will employ about 606,000 people worldwide by the end of 2013, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s 24 percent below the peak of 795,000 in 2008 and the least since 2004, when they employed 594,000 globally. “The continuing cost-cutting announcements you’ve been getting reflect an incredibly difficult revenue environment and that’s new,” said Simon Maughan, an analyst at Olivetree Securities Ltd. in London. “The big bulky mass layoffs, such as they were, are probably gone, but that’s not to say staff numbers wont drift lower because it’s a struggle to grow the top line.”
