Co-operative to axe 1,000 jobs

The British financial services group, Co-operative, today confirmed plans to axe up to 1,000 jobs.

The cuts at the Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) division – which include online bank Smile, the Co-operative Bank and Co-operative Insurance – amount to about 10% of the group’s 10,000 staff.

The CFS said the job losses were “regrettably unavoidable” and came as part of plans to save £100m (€1.48m) in operational costs by June 2008.