The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
Ashton, Bradford, Cambridge, Chatham, Chester, Chichester, City of London, Dartford, Halesowen, Harrogate, Luton, Oxford, Rotherham, Solihull, Truro, Wakefield, Walsall and York
Sector
Financial Services Financial And Insurance Activities Financial Service Activities, Except Insurance And Pension Funding 64.19 - Other monetary intermediation
350 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
25 August 2020
Employment effect (start)
Foreseen end date
1 December 2020
Description
The Co-operative Bank, the British retail and commercial bank has announced that it will close 18 of its branches across England and cut 350 jobs, 11% of its workforce, by 1st December. The job cuts will affect people working in the branches to be closed, in the head office and in middle management roles.
The bank’s chief executive said the cuts and closures were meant to save money and 'right-size the operating model' in response to the low interest rates and the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. He added that there was a shift towards customers increasingly using online banking services, even before the pandemic started.
The trade union Unite said the news was 'particularly painful' because employees of the bank had experienced a number of restructures in the past decade.
The Co-operative Bank has a customer-led ethical policy, which means that the bank does not provide banking services to organisations that conflict with customers’ views on a range of issues, for example human rights or animal welfare.
Eurofound (2020), Co-operative Bank, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 101936, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/101936.
Digitisation and automation technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), can affect working conditions in a variety of ways and their use in the workplace raises a host of new ethical concerns.
The retail banking sector is fertile ground for studying the impacts of digitalisation on work and employment. Financial services are increasingly provided online, without the intermediary of customer-facing institutions.
European labour markets have recovered strongly from COVID-19. By the end of 2021, little more than 18 months after the start of the pandemic, employment rates in the EU were almost at pre-crisis levels.
