After the humbling comes the shrinking. After Sir Fred Goodwin, the deluge: the Royal Bank of Scotland announced yesterday that its most famous former employee is to be joined by 9,000 more, half of them made redundant abroad and half in the UK. There has not been a more powerful proof since the financial crisis began that its effects are now being felt not just by the institutions and individuals that created it, but by the people who worked for them.
The RBS job cuts will be politically painful for a government that now owns 70 per cent of the bank. They will, more importantly, be materially painful for thousands of back-office workers who never aspired to be masters of the Universe but never ”” until last year ”” seriously contemplated being laid off either.
Perhaps the Royal Bank of Scotland needs a new advertising phrase — something like, “Less talk, more thought.” !!!!!!