Edinburgh workforce to be hit as RBS plans to axe another 900 jobs

The Edinburgh-based bailed-out lender, which is still 73 per cent state-owned, has already cut more than 2,500 jobs since January.

The bank said posts at its headquarters in the capital, as well as London, Manchester and Birmingham, will be affected.

According to the BBC, the roles will mostly be lost in IT and back office positions that support the commercial, retail and private bank.

The move takes the workforce cuts over the past four months to about five per cent of its overall staff.

Today’s announcement follows RBS’ cutting back of its face-to-face advice service in March leading to around 550 job cuts and the closure of 32 NatWest branches, which was revealed in April.

The latest job loses come in the midst of a major restructuring aimed at returning the bank to profit after eight straight years of losses. The bank was rescued with a £46 billion state bailout during the 200709 financial crisis.

An RBS spokesman said: “As RBS becomes a smaller UK-focussed bank, we are restructuring our support services to better align with the business we are becoming. These changes unfortunately mean some job losses. We understand how difficult this is for our staff and will be offering as much support as we can including redeployment to other roles where possible.”