Lloyds Tsb Axes 550 Jobs

[Furby]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33...-108725,00.html

Lloyds TSB axes 550 jobs

Julia Finch, City editor

Tuesday August 7, 2007

Guardian Unlimited

Lloyds TSB is axing 550 British jobs as a result of closing more than 30 Cheltenham & Gloucester branches and sending 210 IT jobs offshore.

The IT jobs being moved abroad amount to nearly half the staff in that division. They will come from offices in London, Cardiff and Manchester. One hundred are permanent staff jobs and 110 are contract positions. All of the bank's IT staff will be offered voluntary redundancy terms.

Staff will be told of the cutbacks and closures at the Cheltenham & Gloucester tomorrow. A spokesman refused to comment on the scale of the cuts, but it is understood 31 of the building society's offices will be shut down, with 340 job losses.

Lloyds TSB is the UK's fifth biggest bank, with 2,000 branches and 10 million customers. Last week it reported half-year profits of £2bn, up 15% on a year earlier. It bought Cheltenham & Gloucester in 1995.

Lloyds was one of the first UK high street banks to move large amounts of work overseas. It opened its first Indian call centre, in Mumbai, in 2004. But this year it started to repatriate many of the frontline customer account inquiry services that had been sent to India after frustrated customers started to close accounts.

The Mumbai call centre, which at its peak had employed 700 local workers, was closed down and a new automated answering service set up. Lloyds said customers would once again be able to call their local branch direct.

A spokesman for Lloyds TSB said the decision to bring jobs back applied only to customer inquiry services, not back office roles such as IT.

He said the bank had an agreement with the Unite union to ensure all staff were offered permanent jobs elsewhere within the group. There would also be voluntary redundancies.

However, Unite officer John Bancroft said it had been shown "no business justification for the decision to send work aboard".

He added: "There is no evidence to suggest that by offshoring these jobs the bank will be able to offer a better service to its customers. We have serious concerns about the possible impact of this proposal."

[Xurbia]

http://business.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,33...-108725,00.html

[LARGE RANT]

Good stuff. Keep shipping the jobs abroad and let the cheaper Indians do a better job (well let 5 of them try to do a better job than 1 Brit)! It is well understood that IT is no longer the most important function of a modern business, so why have it located with the business where communication is possible? I know the answer: because shortly the whole company business will be based abroad.

As Tony Blair was fond of saying "It is inevitable that jobs will be lost overseas". The man was a useless tool only to be replaced by Gordon Brown; a man who is as welcome as a turd in a trifle. [LARGE RANT]

[Guest Bart of Darkness]

Last week it reported half-year profits of £2bn, up 15% on a year earlier.

Ah........

[crash2006]

[LARGE RANT]

Good stuff. Keep shipping the jobs abroad and let the cheaper Indians do a better job (well let 5 of them try to do a better job than 1 Brit)! It is well understood that IT is no longer the most important function of a modern business, so why have it located with the business where communication is possible? I know the answer: because shortly the whole company business will be based abroad.

As Tony Blair was fond of saying "It is inevitable that jobs will be lost overseas". The man was a useless tool only to be replaced by Gordon Brown; a man who is as welcome as a turd in a trifle. [LARGE RANT]

ive worked in one of their london offices and i can tell you they are Unorganized.

[Xurbia]

ive worked in one of their london offices and i can tell you they are Unorganized.

So more reason for them not to ship the jobs abroad until they have their house in order?

It's all about cost. I don't know how they communicate with IT from abroad but it probably works as well as the call centres. I predicted Dell would lose customers because of crap service and I wasn't wrong.

[Leonard Hatred]

Hot on the heels of Creda, eh?

Sorry, Britons. You've priced yourselves out of work.

[ScaredEitherWay]

Balls

There goes my specialism and my field

And

The town I just relocated to to find work

So, for those who say people who fail don't try hard enough, I sold my house and moved 200 miles to look for work as an IT contractor again, specialising in banking/financial. In fact, I worked for the organisation in that report on the project that rolled out what they're shutting down.

It has taken me 15 months to get from the decision to improve my lot by selling/moving to where I am now. Another unfortunate pieceof timing for me.

And look how those worlds are now falling apart. In particular from this I notice that it is IT and IT contractors hit... well, that's me, or it will be again soon ... er maybe

Might have to head over somewhere else.

Or maybe what I need now is a new specialism.

Debt counselling might be a growth industry for the next 10 years.

Edited August 8, 2007 by ScaredEitherWay

[Bearback]

TSB, the bank that likes to say.... SACKED

[tara747]

Balls

There goes my specialism and my field

And

The town I just relocated to to find work

So, for those who say people who fail don't try hard enough, I sold my house and moved 200 miles to look for work as an IT contractor again, specialising in banking/financial. In fact, I worked for the organisation in that report on the project that rolled out what they're shutting down.

It has taken me 15 months to get from the decision to improve my lot by selling/moving to where I am now. Another unfortunate pieceof timing for me.

And look how those worlds are now falling apart. In particular from this I notice that it is IT and IT contractors hit... well, that's me, or it will be again soon ... er maybe

Might have to head over somewhere else.

Or maybe what I need now is a new specialism.

Debt counselling might be a growth industry for the next 10 years.

Sorry to hear that, Scared. Yes, anyone who can train as a debt counsellor is going to be very busy.

[goonboy]

Balls

There goes my specialism and my field

And

The town I just relocated to to find work

So, for those who say people who fail don't try hard enough, I sold my house and moved 200 miles to look for work as an IT contractor again, specialising in banking/financial. In fact, I worked for the organisation in that report on the project that rolled out what they're shutting down.

Hi ScaredEitherWay,

My sympathies for your current predicament. as IT is a huge field what kind of stuff do you do, if you don't mind me asking?

Some suggestions could be to try the various IT websites, like jobserve etc. and type in various random keywords to see what is currently sought after and best paid. You might find it easier to retrain into another IT related discipline rather than something totally new. If you have the possibility to so then perhaps consider working in Europe, language is not nessercarily a barrier in some types of work. Although I appreciate this may be impratical for personal reasons. Are you currently renting, if so then at least there is the mobility. Anyway best of luck, hope you find something soon.

gB

[yellerkat]

Debt Counselling 101: Facial expressions to avoid:

[SMAC67]

So if people keep losing their jobs, how are they going to borrow money to buy expensive things...like say....houses? It is fascinating to watch companies such as Lloyds TSB, a bank of some description, completely misunderstand basic economic theory. Of course, if no replacement jobs are available, the government can pay for the unemployed. So where are the taxes coming from? I notice CEO's never price themselves out of the marketplace, but then they are special.

Seriously though, this is one the factors that will drive our recession. Companies in an attempt to save somemoney due to their own excessive debt burden will lay of people who will then no longer be able to pay for the goods or services that the company provides. This will be repeated throughout the economy and the government will have to step in, but will be unable to do much as they no longer have any tax revenues to support the underemployed.

Houses will of course continue to inflate in price because house prices can only go up, it's the law...

[Furby]

Seriously though, this is one the factors that will drive our recession. Companies in an attempt to save somemoney due to their own excessive debt burden will lay of people who will then no longer be able to pay for the goods or services that the company provides. This will be repeated throughout the economy and the government will have to step in, but will be unable to do much as they no longer have any tax revenues to support the underemployed.

Exactly - it is like a snowball running down a hill. In a service economy everybody depend on everybody else being able to earn fiat or borrow it.

It is starting to unwind. With no manufacturing base any more it is difficult to see how UK plc can recover.

F

[@contradevian]

Hot on the heels of Creda, eh?

Sorry, Britons. You've priced yourselves out of work.

Yup and costed yourself out too, by buying houses at silly prices.

[Timm]

TSB, the bank that likes to say.... SACKED

As the rider of the black horse, I feel I should apologise for any ruination caused by our current and future policy.

But I won't.

[Tonester]

I remember the TSB slogan "The bank that like to say yes" - perhaps we can call the bottom when Lloyds TSB have that slogan again. Because as we know every bank has been saying "yes" to more debt last couple of years.