Nordic finance and banking group Nordea’s decision to cut as many as 6,000 jobs is likely to lead to job losses in Norway as well as in Denmark, Sweden and Finland. The exact number remained unclear Thursday, after Nordea announced that many of its employees will need to find something else to do.
“There will be around 6,000 fewer people working for Nordea three to four years from now, including 4,000 employees,” Snorre Storset, chief executive of Nordea Norge, told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK), Thursday morning. Around 2,000 consultants working in the bank on a temporary basis will also be let go.
Storset said the job cuts will be spread among Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway “and in other markets where we operate.” Nordea has more than 31,000 employees, with Swedish newspaper Dagens Industri reporting that around 3,100 of them are in Norway.
The bank reported “solid results” for its Norwegian operation on Thursday, with third-quarter operating results up 31 percent (NOK 367 million) to NOK 1.56 billion over the same quarter last year. Storset cited “considerable” improvement in the Norwegian economy, increased activity and optimism.
He claimed, though, as did the bosses of other Nordea divisions, that changing customer habits, efficiency efforts and digitalization mean that not all the employees now working at Nordea will be needed. Nordea’s CEO, Casper von Koskull, said Thursday that Nordea was going through a “transformation” with no goal of cutting jobs but rather realizing the consequences of automation and digitalization.
newsinenglish.no staff
