6 Feb, 2021 @ 14:22
1 min read

Banks in Spain continue to shed jobs and close branches

Santander bank

THE six main Spanish banks have shed 2,176 jobs and closed 1,188 offices so far during the coronavirus pandemic – with worse to come in 2021.

This is a reduction of 1.72% of their workforce and 8.12% of their branches. 

Not all the blame can be put on the doorstep of COVID, as banks have been making ‘efficiency’ savings for some time.

Santander Bank

But branch closures accelerated in 2020 and will continue to do so this year, according to plans already published by the big banks.

Banco Santander closed 2020 with 2,923 branches in Spain, 296 fewer than it had a year earlier, and 26,961 workers, 669 fewer. It has also announced a Redundancy Program (ERE) that will see 3,572 jobs go and the closure of 1,033 branches. The company is chifting its emphasis towards an online presence.

BBVA Spain cut 953 jobs and 160 branches in 2020, to 29,330 employees and 2,482 branches. It is now planning a cost-cutting exercise in the first half of 2021, for which ‘all options’ are being studied.

A merger of CaixaBank and Bankia is expected to go ahead in the first quarter of 2021. The banks are in negotiations with trade unions over potential job losses.

Dilip Kuner

Dilip Kuner is a NCTJ-trained journalist whose first job was on the Folkestone Herald as a trainee in 1988.
He worked up the ladder to be chief reporter and sub editor on the Hastings Observer and later news editor on the Bridlington Free Press.
At the time of the first Gulf War he started working for the Sunday Mirror, covering news stories as diverse as Mick Jagger’s wedding to Jerry Hall (a scoop gleaned at the bar at Heathrow Airport) to massive rent rises at the ‘feudal village’ of Princess Diana’s childhood home of Althorp Park.
In 1994 he decided to move to Spain with his girlfriend (now wife) and brought up three children here.
He initially worked in restaurants with his father, before rejoining the media world in 2013, working in the local press before becoming a copywriter for international firms including Accenture, as well as within a well-known local marketing agency.
He joined the Olive Press as a self-employed journalist during the pandemic lock-down, becoming news editor a few months later.
Since then he has overseen the news desk and production of all six print editions of the Olive Press and had stories published in UK national newspapers and appeared on Sky News.

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