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Lloyds Banking Group is cutting hundreds of jobs and closing its Liverpool office as the high-street bank enters the final stretch of a £4bn growth and digitisation plan.
In a series of announcements to staff on Wednesday, the UK’s largest retail lender said it would cut jobs and shut the office in Speke, forcing the 500 employees who work there to commute about 25 miles to Chester.
The bank, which has more than 60,000 employees, is expected to set out hundreds of job cuts today, according to two people familiar with the matter. Planned reductions include 163 lay-offs in England and Wales as part of its move towards branch sharing for Lloyds and Halifax customers, said another person familiar with the discussions, adding this will affect two regional directors and 40 senior managers.
Lloyds said: “To achieve the ambitious strategy we launched in February 2022 and deliver a better service to our customers, we are transforming our business.”
It added that change meant not only “creating new roles and upskilling colleagues in some parts of the business, but also having to say goodbye to talented people who have been a part of the group’s success in the past. Where that is unfortunately the case, we will do everything we can to support them with the changes recently announced”.
“The proposed closure of the large Lloyds Banking Group centre in Liverpool Speke is a huge mistake,” said Dominic Hook, Unite national officer. “The impact on the hundreds of staff and the region will be significant and is wholly unnecessary.”
Lloyds’ Liverpool office is a large contact centre dealing with fraud and customer services. The closure came as part of a series of announcements across the group on Wednesday.
Lloyds in 2022 embarked on a five-year £4bn investment plan, led by chief executive Charlie Nunn, aimed at increasing revenue that does not rely on interest rates, and digitising its operations to cut costs and improve returns.
As part of that effort, it has already reviewed 2,500 jobs, and in 2023 embarked on a round of job cuts.
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