CaixaBank prepare to cut 3'000 jobs

 

CaixaBank, Spain's 3rd-largest lender, have said around 3,000 employees would be affected by plans to cut costs after it acquired lenders including Banca Civica .

Jobs need to be cut after the bank absorbed Banca Civica last year and agreed to take over nationalized lender Banco de Valencia, Barcelona-based Caixabank said in a statement today.

Talks with unions may last until the end of April, it said.

"The aim is to analyze all the possible formulas and agree on the best measures to adjust the workforce to the needs of the business," CaixaBank said in the statement. "The application of these restructuring measures will affect some 3,000 staff."

CaixaBank's integration of Banca Civica in 2012 boosted its workforce to 32,625 from 26,993 a year earlier as lenders including Banco Santander shutter branches to weather Spain's economic slump. CaixaBank has 6,342 branches serving 13 million customers, or one branch for every 2,050 clients. That compares with more than 3,000 clients for each of the branches run by Santander, the country's biggest lender.

Despite several rounds of redundancies by most major lenders, it is thought that the number of people employed by the Banking Industry in Spain will still be as many as 220'000 by the end of 2013.