YEARS AGO if someone got a job in a bank they thought they had a job for life.  That’s simply not the case these days.

This grim reality was hammered home last week when Lloyds Banking Group announced that it is to cut 5,000 more jobs by the end of next year.  Some of these cuts will involve temporary staff – but nearly 3000 permanent jobs will also go.

Most of the cuts will come in its operations unit, which includes IT, collections and payment services.  Other divisions being cut back are insurance and retail.This now means that Lloyds has announced more than 10,000 job cuts so far this year. 

On 23rd April it was announced that 985 jobs would go over next two years.  This was followed by 625 (19th May) and 210 (21st May) job losses, from telephone and digital banking services.  June was even worse.  3rd June saw 520 jobs go.  And on 30th June Lloyds said that another 2,100 would go over the next three years.  On 16th July, 1200 went - mainly from IT support and insurance services.  This was followed by 250 jobs on 26th August.

However, this was all overshadowed on 10th November with the devastating news that another 5,000 jobs would by slashed the end of 2010. 

Last year Lloyds merged with the Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS) last year – and received a £20bn bailout from the government.  Ironically, this latest news of job losses came just a week after the government pumped another £5.7bn in public money into Lloyds.

Understandably, ordinary staff are very, very angry.  They have accused Lloyds of "corporate arrogance," short-termism and forcing workers to pay for the 'fat cats' mistakes.