In Spain, the banking sector expects 20,000 layoffs in the year

Nearly 8,300 layoffs, or 19% of employees … CaixaBank, the largest bank in Spain since the absorption in March of Bankia, announced Tuesday, April 20, the third largest social plan ever known in the kingdom. For some “Productive and organizational questions”, 1,500 branches are also expected to close, or 27% of the total.

The banking establishment, which has 624 billion euros in assets, 20 million customers and 1.4 billion euros in profits in 2020, intends to achieve the synergies provided for by the merger in order to increase profitability. But for the Workers’ Commissions (CCOO), these announcements are a “Provocation and a lack of respect”. Recalling that they amount to getting rid of 50% of the employees who have just been integrated by the merger, the unions have planned future mobilizations.

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Three days later, Friday April 23, BBVA, the country’s second largest financial institution in terms of assets, followed suit, with the announcement of 3,800 job cuts (16%) and the closure of 530 branches (25% ), justifying its decision by a “Continued decline in profits” and “Productivity and organizational reasons derived from digital transformation”. In December 2020, the Santander bank for its part sealed with the unions the conditions for the departure of 3,600 employees. And Sabadell did the same a month earlier, to allow 1,800 voluntary departures and early retirement. Finally, 750 job cuts were announced by Ibercaja, and Unicaja is predicting to double this after its merger with Liberbank, scheduled for July … In total, Spanish banks are expected to destroy nearly 20,000 jobs in 2021.

Increase in bad debts

Banks, already weakened by low interest rates, are suffering the consequences of the economic crisis linked to the coronavirus pandemic: not only should the European Central Bank’s low interest rate policy be extended, but the The sector expects a considerable increase in delinquencies – they already represent 4.5% of loans – once the public aid put in place by the government to cushion the crisis has been lifted. Added to this is the acceleration of digitization since containment: customers who use online banking services have gone from 54.9% of the total in 2019 to 62.1% in 2020.

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