 "Barclays PLC to cut about 450 jobs in UK retail bank, says trade union")
By Irina Anghel and Eamon Akil Farhat
Barclays Plc will cut about 450 jobs in its UK consumer-facing unit as part of its ongoing plans to cut costs, according to trade union Unite.
The bank is consulting over which roles will be cut, with the majority expected to be in head office roles, including at vice-president level. The reductions are separate from plans to cull about 5% of client-facing staff in the trading division as well as some dealmakers globally, Bloomberg News reported last week.
“We continue to review and adapt our operations based on the ways customers are choosing to interact with us,” a Barclays spokesperson said. “These changes will enable greater collaboration across our teams, allowing us to continue to improve service for customers and clients.”
The bank was in discussions with Unite about its plans to streamline UK operations last week.
“Unite is opposed to these job losses and has called on Barclays to commit to no compulsory job losses,” national officer Dominic Hook said in an emailed statement.
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Barclays Chief Executive Officer C.S. Venkatakrishnan has made efficiency a priority for the bank, which is in the process of reducing its cost-to-income ratio, a measure of how much it costs to produce a dollar of revenue. The company spent about £63 million ($78 million) in firmwide restructuring and redundancy costs in the first six months of the year.