Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE: LYG) Cuts 535 Additional Jobs

Employees at Lloyds Banking Group (NYSE: LYG) have been dealt another blow after the lender has revealed its plans to cut an additional 535 jobs.

According to the union Unite, the most recent round of redundancies puts the total to 15,000 since the bank’s merger with HBOS in January of this year. A spokesman for Lloyds said that the bank did not agree with that assesment and said that the number of redundancies were likely close to 11,000.

Lloyds’ most recent job cuts will occur in its call center in Brighton. The center will be closed in may as part of the integration process of HBOS and Lloyds Banking Group. The company said that the work will be transferred to other call centers in the United Kingdom. About 162 of the positions at the call center will be relocated elsewhere meaning that there will be a net reduction of about 373 jobs.

A Unite national officer, Rob MacGregor, commented, “Unite is astounded that Lloyds has decided to cut customer contact jobs. The result of this plan is that in just three weeks 580 Lloyds employees have lost their jobs in this small geographical region of Brighton.” He continued,  “Unite is alarmed about the consequence of this strategy by Lloyds. There have been in excess of 15,000 job losses announced since the formation of this organisation.”

Lloyds Banking Group’s managing director for direct channels commented, “As part of our integration process we have reviewed our contact centre sites to ensure that we are operating in the best possible way.”  He continued, “We recognise that this is difficult news for our affected colleagues. We are committed to working closely with them to help them look for other opportunities within the group and elsewhere between now and May next year.”

Analysts predict that cuts will total between 25,000 and 30,000 when the merger is complete.