Italian global banking and financial services company, UniCredit has announced cutting down 6,000 jobs and close 450 branches in Italy as Chief Executive Officer Jean Pierre Mustier sets his three year-efficiency plan in motion. 

According to a letter sent to unions, the reductions and closures will take place through 2023. The terminations are part of a plan announced in December to cut about 8,000 positions, or more than nine percent of the workforce.

The letter was sent to unions to initiate talks over job losses. UniCredit said that it expects to reach an agreement by the end of the first quarter. Mustier has repeatedly said that job cuts will be done through early retirements, in a socially responsible way and in alignment with the group’s workers’ representatives. 

According to media reports, Mustier is cutting costs and accelerating the cleanup of the balance sheet as the executive focuses on further simplifying the bank’s structure and improving the way it allocates capital. Since 2014, UniCredit has cut about 20,000 jobs. Mustier’ first business plan, dubbed ‘Transform 2019’, envisaged a total of 14,000 job cuts.

“Unions are strongly against the job and branch cuts plan,” said Fulvio Furlan, general secretary of Uilca, one of the main banking unions. “Discussions with unions must lead to solutions that limit the job cuts and include a plan of new hirings.”

The bank has undergone a major restructuring under French chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier, who was hired 2016 to turn it around and tackle concerns about its weak capital base.

ImageCredits: deko-tech.com