By Sinead Cruise and Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest domestic bank Lloyds (L:LLOY) is planning to axe 780 jobs as part of ongoing cost-cutting at the lender, union Unite said on Wednesday.
The union said the bank had informed its workforce of the planned cuts and described the move as "deeply alarming".
A spokeswoman for Lloyds said the bank was reducing the number of roles across its branch network but did not comment on job cut numbers.
The cuts come after Lloyds reported a 26% drop in annual profits last week, after being hit by bad debts and billions of pounds of customer compensation.
Lloyds has cut around 5,000 staff in the last two years, going from around 68,000 employees at the end of 2017 to just 63,000 at the end of 2019 according to company filings.
Britain's banks have continued to made deep cuts to their workforces in response to squeezed profit margins and customers ditching high street branches in favour of digital services.
"The decision by Lloyds Banking Group to cut the equivalent of 780 staff from its branches is yet more evidence of the bank's profits over people culture," said Scott Doyle of Unite.
Lloyds issued guidelines last month on treating staff fairly after a rise in complaints to another of its employee unions Accord about working conditions across its dwindling retail network.
A Lloyds spokeswoman said: "As customers are using our branches less often, we are reducing the number of roles across our branch network.
"This means we can shape our service according to customer behaviour and local demand. Change does mean difficult decisions and we are focused on supporting our colleagues at this time."
