Some Analysts Are Really Happy That Lloyds Bank Is Cutting 9,000 Jobs
The business model might well be improving, but that's at the expense of the company being viciously streamlined. They're aiming to make savings of £1 billion ($1.61 billion) per year by 2017.
Even for a business of Lloyds' size, those sort of reductions are never painless. There's not yet any indication of where the axe will fall, but given their commitment to boosting their IT services, that department is probably relatively safe. Many of the layoffs will almost certainly be in increasingly unused physical bank branches.
This isn't the first round of massive job cuts at the bank either. In 2011, they announced their intention to cut 15,000 jobs by the end of this year.
Lloyds' share price is down about 2% this morning, but analysts aren't sounding distressed. In a note titled "Carry On Cutting," Investec analyst Ian Gordon notes the driving force for the layoffs:
Some think that the cuts are an indication of inefficiency at the bank. This from Jakub Lichwa at Daiwa Capital Markets:
Others, like Mike Van Dulken at Accendo Markets, don't mention the job cuts, but are very happy with the overall direction of the bank: