Spanish lender Banco Sabadell is looking to trim its headcount by nearly 1,900 in its home market as part of a drive to reduce costs.
The retrenchment will be mainly through voluntary departures. Affected jobs are said to constitute around 13% of the bank’s workforce.
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According to Reuters, 85% of the layoffs would primarily impact the retail network of the bank.
Sabadell is expected to reach an agreement with unions on the issue next month, stated the news agency, adding that the redundancies could be lower based on the discussions.
Currently, Sabadell has around 15,000 employees. The new round of layoffs plans come after it cut over 1,800 jobs in Spain late last year.
The job cuts are part of the bank’s new three-year strategic plan, which target €100m in cost savings.
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By GlobalDataAs of 30 June 2021, Sabadell’s return on equity (ROE) stood at 3.10% compared to a cost of capital of above 9%.
Spain’s union Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) called the proposed culling “disproportionate” and “unreal”.
Denouncing the decision, the union said that the fresh redundancies at the bank had “no economic, technical, productive or organisational causes”.
Other recent Sabadell moves
Meanwhile in November 2020, Sabadell and BBVA terminated their merger negotiations as they could not reach an agreement over price.
In May this year, Sabadell entered into discussions for divestiture of its Andorra business to local lender MoraBanc.
Sabadell owns around 51% of the shares of Banc Sabadell d’Andorra, which was set up in 2000.
Layoffs at other Spanish banks
Recently, Sabadell’s Spanish peers have planned similar moves to adapt to the digital banking shift and save costs.
In July this year, Caixabank reached an agreement with the unions to lay off 6,452 employees.
Reuters termed the retrenchment exercise the biggest staff overhaul in Spanish banking history.
This year in June, BBVA submitted a proposal for 2,935 job cuts from the 3,798 it initially planned in April.
