Lloyds Bank to cut another 1,230 UK jobs in drive to cut costs

Lloyds Banking Group announced plans to axe another 1,230 UK jobs as it progresses a restructuring programme aimed at cutting costs and improving returns.

The job losses will fall across the bank's group operations, retail, customer products and marketing, finance and risk divisions, and affected staff are being briefed by their line managers.

"Where it is necessary for employees to leave the company, it will look to achieve this by offering voluntary redundancy," Lloyds said. "Compulsory redundancies will always be a last resort."

The Unite union branded the job losses as "horrific".

Lloyds announced in July it would be cutting a further 3,000 jobs and closing an additional 200 branches amid a more testing economic environment caused by Britain's vote to quit the European Union.

So far this year, Lloyds has already said it would cut about 4,000 positions from its 75,000-strong workforce and has closed nearly 100 branches this year. The bank said its cuts programme is part of a streamlining package first announced in October 2014.

Rob MacGregor, Unite national officer, said: "The constant flow of job cuts across Lloyds must now be halted and staff be allowed to get on with delivering the high quality and impressive service they are so good at providing. The Lloyds management pursuit of this cuts agenda is counterproductive in their aim of a successful business."

The UK government owns around 9% of the bank, which had to be rescued during the financial crisis.

Last week, the government ditched plans to sell its remaining stake in Lloyds to members of the public, blaming market volatility.

Chancellor Philip Hammond said the stake will instead be sold through a "trading plan", with small tranches of shares sold to institutional investors.