Almost one in six staff at the Birmingham office of insurance giant Aviva are opting for voluntary redundancy.
A total of 25 people will leave the city office next month as part of a radical cost-cutting drive announced earlier this year by Britain’s second largest insurer. The departures will leave around 140 staff at the city centre office.
Aviva acting head of media relations Erik Nelson said in a statement: “In June we announced changes to our general insurance trading centres so that we are able to be more responsive, and make clear, quick decisions for our brokers.
“In order to minimise redundancies, we offered staff in these centres the opportunity to apply for voluntary redundancy. In Birmingham this has resulted in 25 people taking voluntary redundancy.”
In the summer Aviva announced that 800 jobs were at risk nationwide, with middle management in its life and general insurance division facing the axe, although the final number of jobs lost was likely to be lower due to redeployment.
Executive chairman John McFarlane announced plans to save £400 million in costs by 2014.
But unions reacted angrily to the proposed cuts, and accused Aviva of failing to ‘come clean’ over the precise scale of cutbacks.
The insurer unveiled a 10 per cent drop in first-half operating profits to £935 million, but a net loss after tax of £681 million.
