Royal Bank of Scotland has just announced that in a further move to reduce costs another 3,500 jobs will go across the UK. Of course as the bank is 80+% owned by you and me, saving money would seem to be a good thing. Surely the leaner and meaner the bank can look to potential buyers of the shares, the sooner the British government can get rid of theirs and get back to do what it is supposed to be doing.
The jobs it seems are to go across ‘back office’ functions in the business services division. I suppose that is fair enough as there is so much less business to service, thanks to the banks themselves. It will mean the closure of 12 of its business services centres across the UK and put a further 3 under review for closure.
The job cu
ts, which will involve between 12 and 15 centres across the UK, and which will start next year and run on till the end of 2012, come on top of the same division's 9,000 job cuts announced last year. Additionally RBS is to close half its Churchill and Direct Line offices with further 2000 job losses and another 600 job cuts at head office in Edinburgh.
Some of the jobs lost in the UK will be relocated to China, India and the United States. Fortunately it is reported that there will be some work, and staff transferred to RBS’s offices in Greenock and Edinburgh.
This scale of job loss, described as a horror story by the Unite union, is I fear just the start of a winter of horror stories; job losses, home repossessions and general all round misery, as prices increase and some benefits are cut. Inflation for the poorest is already at a far higher level than the Treasury suggests, with expected increases in the prices of many staples because of the foul summer weather across the world, and a small VAT rise on other necessities. Let us hope that the power companies can keep their prices low, or that if not, this government will do what the French government does, and limit their ability to raise prices beyond inflation.
It is difficult to know whether the leaks of complete carnage across the Civil Service are designed to make us fear the worst, and the October statement by Mr Osborne will be greeted with sighs of relief all round....or if it is all too true and too horrible, designed to get to grips with the idiotic financial fiasco left by Labour.
The fear is that the UK along with the US is headed for a second recession. The US economy to which Scotland sells around 10% of its total exports certainly looks shaky and the European countries, which make up the bulk of Scotland’s exports (arou
nd 66%) are not long out of recession.
We cannot expect the private sector to be able to pull us out of this mess.
I just hope that Mr Osborne is as clever as his publicity tells us he is. There is a very great deal riding on his supposed talents.
The jobs it seems are to go across ‘back office’ functions in the business services division. I suppose that is fair enough as there is so much less business to service, thanks to the banks themselves. It will mean the closure of 12 of its business services centres across the UK and put a further 3 under review for closure.
The job cu
ts, which will involve between 12 and 15 centres across the UK, and which will start next year and run on till the end of 2012, come on top of the same division's 9,000 job cuts announced last year. Additionally RBS is to close half its Churchill and Direct Line offices with further 2000 job losses and another 600 job cuts at head office in Edinburgh.Some of the jobs lost in the UK will be relocated to China, India and the United States. Fortunately it is reported that there will be some work, and staff transferred to RBS’s offices in Greenock and Edinburgh.
This scale of job loss, described as a horror story by the Unite union, is I fear just the start of a winter of horror stories; job losses, home repossessions and general all round misery, as prices increase and some benefits are cut. Inflation for the poorest is already at a far higher level than the Treasury suggests, with expected increases in the prices of many staples because of the foul summer weather across the world, and a small VAT rise on other necessities. Let us hope that the power companies can keep their prices low, or that if not, this government will do what the French government does, and limit their ability to raise prices beyond inflation.
It is difficult to know whether the leaks of complete carnage across the Civil Service are designed to make us fear the worst, and the October statement by Mr Osborne will be greeted with sighs of relief all round....or if it is all too true and too horrible, designed to get to grips with the idiotic financial fiasco left by Labour.
The fear is that the UK along with the US is headed for a second recession. The US economy to which Scotland sells around 10% of its total exports certainly looks shaky and the European countries, which make up the bulk of Scotland’s exports (arou
nd 66%) are not long out of recession.We cannot expect the private sector to be able to pull us out of this mess.
I just hope that Mr Osborne is as clever as his publicity tells us he is. There is a very great deal riding on his supposed talents.
