Three of Italy’s largest banks – UniCredit, UBI Banca and Banca Popolare di Milano – have in recent weeks announced thousands of job cuts as part of their respective strategic plans. Some 10,000 staff will depart, for the most part through early retirement arrangements. Unions in Italy, who are demanding that young people be recruited to counterbalance half of these departures, dispute the banks’ claims that the rise of digitalisation is a reason to cut jobs and close down branches. The evolution of the banking sector, which is under pressure from the rise of new technology, will be the subject of analysis by an ad hoc committee set up under the sector’s new collective agreement (see article n°11564).
UniCredit, UBI Banca and BPM announce around 10,000 job cuts. Industry giant UniCredit struck first, announcing at the end of 2019 that it would cut around 6,000 jobs as part of its strategic plan for the period up to 2023 (the difficult negotiations with unions have just commenced, see article n°11649). On 17 February it was UBI Banca, Italy’s fourth-largest lender, which announced staff reductions of more than 2,000 by 2022, out of around 20,000 employees. Hours after the plan was announced,
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