Barclays Bank has announced mass firing targeting more than 900 jobs in its British business, in order to cut cost intended to boost payouts for their shareholders.
Reports on Tuesday November 28, the company’s aim was to cut costs in a bid to improve its returns.
According to a spokesperson speaking to Reuters, the bank was taking actions to reduce its workforce to improve its technology and automaton capabilities.
“We are taking a number of actions to simplify and reshape the business, improve service, and deliver higher returns.”
“This includes changes to our headcount as management layers are reduced and the Group improves its technology and automation capabilities,” the spokesperson said.
Also Read: 7,800 Kenyans Face Layoffs as EPZ Investor Sells Property
However, on its part, the UK based bank did not reveal the exact number of staff that would be affected.
Notably, the shake-up is expected to affect mainly back-office jobs in departments such as compliance, human resources and legal.
Barclays earlier warning
Earlier, the bank’s bosses warned of the need to restructure to boost profits and dividend payments to shareholders.
Sundararajan Venkatakrishnan at the bank’s third-quarter financial update last month noted that modulation of the workforce was a constant effort for the company.
“We always modulate the size of our workforce everywhere in the world in which we are, and that’s what we will continue to do,” the chief executive noted.
When asked whether the cost-cutting plans would involve job losses, the chief executive said they would always modulate the size of their workforce everywhere in the world.
Also Read: Tech layoffs: Yahoo Announces Plan to Reduce Workforce by 20%
Barclays also suffered a larger-than-expected drop in deposits and warned that its net interest margin would probably fall in the fourth quarter, putting a further squeeze on its income.
Additionally, Barclays’ market value has fallen more than 11% over 12 months and 15% so far this year.
About 87,000 people worldwide are employed by the bank, with about 44,000 in the UK.
Layoffs In Kenya
The CIC Insurance Group offered a voluntary early retirement scheme on November 3, 2023.
In an internal memo signed by the group’s CEO, Patrick Nyaga, there were unspecified number of layoffs across all the insurers’ companies.
These companies include the Insurance group General Insurance Ltd, Life Assurance Company Ltd and Asset Management Ltd. Further, the memo directed the staff to an intranet site for details.
