Barclays to cut up to 12,000 jobs worldwide

Barclays said it will cut up to 12,000 jobs this year even as it raised bonuses for investment bankers, prompting fury among politicians and unions who said it had not learned the lessons of the financial crisis.

Stepping up efforts to reduce costs, Barclays said up to 9 percent of employees could go, including 7,000 in Britain, where half of the affected staff had already been notified. The cuts are not concentrated in any single business area.

Britain’s third-biggest bank said it paid 2.4 billion pounds (US$3.9 billion) in incentive awards last year after raising bonuses at the investment bank by 13 percent despite a slump in profits from the business.

The average bonus across the investment bank’s 26,200 staff was 60,100 pounds.

The combination of layoffs and fatter bonuses drew indignation from Britain’s biggest labor union.

“The culture change the bank promised will be less than skin deep if those at the top still hoover up obscene amounts of money while workers in call centers and branches struggle by on low wages and face the persistent pressure of job insecurity,” said Ciaran Naidoo of Unite the Union.

Barclays Chief Executive Anthony Jenkins, who took the helm in 2012 after an interest rate rigging scandal, is attempting to improve culture and standards while also reducing risk and strengthening the balance sheet.

Jenkins defended the bigger bonus pot, saying the bank had to recruit the best staff to compete with global rivals.

Analysts voiced growing concern about the bank’s ability to get return on equity above 11.5 percent by 2016, as Jenkins is targeting.