Northern Rock staff braced for job cuts

STAFF at Oldham’s Northern Rock branch in Yorkshire Street face an anxious wait to see if they will lose their jobs.

The troubled bank has announced that 800 employees nationally will be forced to take compulsory redundancy while another 500 will be offered voluntary pay-offs.

Managers are seeking a further 700 job losses by 2011 through staff turnover. The company will keep 4,000 workers.

The cuts are part of chairman Ron Sandler’s restructuring plans for the Newcastle–based group, taken into public ownership in February after being forced to seek a Bank of England bail–out last year.

The lender became the first major victim of the credit crunch last September after its borrowing costs soared — sparking the first run on a British bank in more than 140 years.

A Northern Rock spokesman confirmed that it was too early to say if there would be any job losses in Oldham.

Mr Sandler said: “Confirming job losses is never easy but our staff have been kept well informed and the need to contract the size of the company is well understood.

“This remains a very tough time for our staff but the restructure of the company is nearing completion and we are now in the final phase of this difficult process.

“We have worked hard with Unite, and other employee representatives, to minimise the total number of job losses and in particular, to limit the number of compulsory redundancies to potentially around 800 jobs.

“We have been able to achieve around 500 of the job losses by voluntary means.”