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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Today's job News

NORTHERN Rock has revealed plans to axe 650 staff as it is prepared to be sold off to the private sector.
The state-owned bank plans to shed 14% of its 4,500 workforce at all levels by the end of the year at its offices in Newcastle and Sunderland.
A public and private sector response team was quickly launched yesterday to find new work for the staff who will be made redundant.
But unions and politicians in the region have hit out at the cuts and said workers in the North East should not be sacrificed to help the Government get a quick sale. Last night, there were also growing fears that another high street lender was preparing to reveal major job losses today.
Last night, Rock chief executive Gary Hoffman said the bank now handled a fifth of the mortgage business it enjoyed at its peak, and argued the cuts were necessary to “align our staffing level to match the smaller size of the business”.
He said: “We remain in public ownership and it is important that we continue to deliver value for taxpayers.”
But Newcastle Central MP Chi Onwurah, in whose constituency the bank has its HQ, last night said she wanted to make sure the bank was “well positioned for future growth”.
She said: “The most important thing now it make sure these jobs are not going either as a result of a political need to speed up the return or from the bank anticipating such a request.
“It would be terrible to think these jobs are going as a result of political pressure to hurry up and get the bank off the Government’s books.”
After it collapsed in 2008, Northern Rock announced plans to reduce the workforce by 2,000, but that number was later reduced to 1,500.

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