Bank to cut jobs in commercial centre
The banking giant is shutting five of the centres around the country, with four of them in the South West.
The Plymouth centre is effectively a collection of 11 'behind the scenes' administrative staff working in branches in the city centre.
They will lose their jobs by the end of the year, but the bank stressed that it hopes the losses can be mopped up by natural wastage, such as retirements, and some staff may even be redeployed.
It hopes compulsory redundancies will be a 'last resort'.
The commercial service centre provides admin support for the bank's work with its Plymouth business customers.
A Lloyds spokesman said customers will not notice any change because the work will be transferred to a regional centre in another West Country branch.
But the job losses have been severely criticised by unions angry at the scale of Lloyds job losses this year.
The Plymouth redundancies are part of plans to lose 2,100 workers across the bank's commercial and group operations nationally, including the closure of commercial service centres in Lincoln, Barnstaple, Exeter and Yeovil.
The new job losses take the total posts axed this year by Lloyds to more than 7,000.
The bank said it expected 700 of the job cuts to be achieved through natural attrition and the release of contract and agency staff.
It said measures had been put in place to help staff through this 'uncertain time'.
But the Unite union said it was 'astonished' at the job losses and 'real questions' must be asked about how far the bank can be allowed to go in its 'systematic' slashing of staff.
Rob MacGregor, Unite's national officer, said: "Morale is now truly low as employees across Lloyds are in a permanent state of anxiety as they see their employer announce hundreds of job losses every week.
"This horrendous news brings the total of job losses since January in LBG to over 7,000.
"The thousands of staff in the commercial and group operations areas who are hit by this announcement will be seeking a commitment from the bank that there will be no compulsory redundancies."
Lloyds said the changes followed 'careful and detailed reviews' of the group operations and wholesale divisions, which will bring together functions across Lloyds TSB and HBOS.
It stressed 350 roles will be created in its wholesale division, including 60 in Birmingham and 40 in Edinburgh, and pledged not to offshore permanent operational roles, keeping jobs in the UK where possible.
Ged Nichols, general secretary of Accord, the union representing former HBOS employees working in Lloyds , said: "The cumulative job loss total, and the almost weekly announcements, are a major worry for everybody."
