RBS Sacks 1,400 Staff

The newswires are reporting that RBS has told staff that 1,400 of them will lose their jobs over the coming two years.

ECB To Recruit 800 More Staff

The many millions of people in the Eurozone who have been made redundant because of the policies of the ECB need fear for their futures no more, the ECB is planning to recruit more staff.

Unfortunately the ECB will only be recruiting 800 more staff, paid for out of the pockets of the hapless European taxpayers.

For why does the ECB need to increase its headcount?

In December EU finance ministers agreed to make the ECB chief supervisor for banks in the Eurozone, the deadline for full implementation of the supervisory role being March 2014, thus the ECB believes that it needs extra staff in order to fulfill its new role.

The new supervisory powers of the ECB are one further step towards full monetary union. Those who are recruited would be advised to be aware that, despite the hubris of the politicians and technocrats, the Euro experiment will end in tears, as such their roles cannot be seen as anything more than temporary.

Project Transform - Barclays Faces An Uphill Struggle

Barclays has announced that it will cut 3,700 jobs (1,800 of them in its investment banking division) and £1.7BN of costs, as part of Project Transform which is designed to restore confidence in both its finances and its tattered reputation.

As Barclays fully realises a good brand and reputation takes years to build but days to destroy, the uphill struggle to restore confidence will take many years.

HMV Collapse

Now that HMV has gone the way of Jessops and placed itself in administration, aside from the worries faced by the staff of HMV those with gift vouchers will also be worried.

As of today HMV have stopped accepting HMV gift vouchers. Whilst the administrators may choose to accept them at some stage in the future, there is no guarantee that they will. Additionally, if any part of the chain is sold to a third party the new owner is under no legal obligation to accept the gift vouchers.

Which? recommend that those holding gift vouchers in failed chains such as Jessops and HMV write to the administrators to ask for a refund (a process that offers no guarantees and may well take at least 12 months). Which? have a helpful Q&A section wrt failed retailers, which also has a link to a template for a letter asking for a refund of gift vouchers held.

Ironically, not everyone has done so badly out of the failure of HMV. A number of companies/individuals heavily shorted HMV in the days running up to its demise in the hope of making a killing out of its failure.

UBS Redundancies Smokescreen

Whilst UBS is enveloped by the smokescreen of publicity derived from its mass culling (and handling of that mass culling) of staff today, it seems to have been a "good" day for it to also let the world know that it is under investigation in Singapore, along with other banks, for possible manipulation of Libor and other benchmark rates.

As per Reuters:

"These investigations focus on whether there were improper attempts by UBS (among others), either acting on our own or together with others, to manipulate LIBOR and other benchmark rates at certain times."

 

UBS - U've Been Sacked

UBS may well regret how it has handled informing its staff about their redundancies today.

The FT reports that UBS was one of the most popular trends on twitter, as the blogosphere flooded with comments describing the shock and resentment of staff.

According to the PR bullshit being spouted by UBS the redundancies are a ‘strategic acceleration from position of strength.’

Who hires these people, and why are they still in their jobs?

UBS Redundancies Update

Ralph Sinclair has tweeted the follwoing:

"From inside 100 Liverpool Street: "Whole desks are gone and there are people stood outside without access to the building."

UBS Redundancies

It seems that UBS is making some people redundant today and over the next three years (10,000 in total).

Sadly, as per Owen Callan, UBS is using the "old school" method of informing them.

People arrive at work, if their passes don't work they are ushered into a special room where they are told that they are on special leave.