Northern Rock to axe jobs

Northern Rock has announced plans to cut around 1,300 jobs. The redundancies will form part of its plan to restructure the embattled mortgage lender.

The bank, which was nationalised in February this year, is also estimating that it will have 4,000 staff left, with a total of 2,000 jobs axed by 2011.

It is hoping that up to 500 staff will leave voluntarily, while limiting compulsory redundancies to 800.

The news comes just a week after announcing the appointment of Barclays vice chairman Gary Hoffman to the position of chief executive which he is due to step into in October. He will replace Andy Kuipers who will leave Northern Rock at the end of August.

The appointment will also see Ron Sandler, the executive chairman the Treasury brought in to take charge in February, becoming non-executive chairman when Hoffman takes up his post.

In February, the Government introduced emergency legislation to temporarily nationalise Northern Rock after being hit by the effects of the credit crunch.