RBS Plans To Cut Nearly 900 Tech Jobs

(RTTNews) - The Royal Bank of Scotland plans to cut 880 jobs from its IT department in London by 2020, a UK labor union reported.

Britain's Unite union claimed on Tuesday that the bank informed its staff about a further 40 percent cut of permanent IT jobs, which is said to be part of ongoing deep cost-cutting at the taxpayer-owned bank. The bank also plans a 65 percent reduction of contractors.

Following the cuts, RBS will have 950 full-time IT roles in London, down from 2,200 last year.

Rob MacGregor, national officer for Unite, said, "RBS's fixation with cutting employee numbers, restructuring and offshoring work that could reasonably be done by displaced staff within the RBS IT community is unacceptable. This British-taxpayer funded bank should be concentrating instead on investing in jobs here in the U.K., rather than wholesale cuts."

In March, the bank announced plans to close 158 branches resulting in reduction of up to 362 jobs, citing a shift in customers preference for online banking.

According to Unite, the bank would be operating a skeleton service by 2020.

Meanwhile, an RBS spokesman reportedly stated that the cuts were a necessary part of its downsizing and that the proposals were at a very early stage. The spokesman added that while the bank was downsizing in London it plans to reinvest in other parts of the UK.