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.
Financial Services Activities Auxiliary To Financial Services And Insurance Activities Activities Auxiliary To Financial Services And Insurance Activities 66 - Activities auxiliary to financial services and insurance activities
750 jobs Number of planned job losses
Announcement Date
22 March 2005
Employment effect (start)
Foreseen end date
Description
Bank of Ireland is to cut 2,100 jobs in Ireland and the United Kingdom as part of a cost-cutting drive fuelled by increased competition. Ireland's second largest company also said it would listen to offers for its UK retail division Bristol & West. It had received several offers for Bristol & West, which employs 5,000 staff across 97 branches. If BoI does decide to sell the branches, it will raise a question mark over at least another 750 jobs.
The financial union Amicus, which represents 400 BoI workers, condemned the job cuts. Colm Quinlan, an Amicus official, said: "We have assured our members that we will resist in the strongest terms any attempt to sacrifice jobs purely to enhance massive profits; that we will not countenance any proposal that includes compulsory redundancies, and will oppose any proposal to outsource jobs abroad."
Sources
23 March 2005: The Guardian
22 March 2005: BBC News
Citation
Eurofound (2005), Bristol and West, Internal restructuring in United Kingdom, factsheet number 61291, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://restructuringeventsprod.azurewebsites.net/restructuring-events/detail/61291.
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.
