Barclays shares up on 8220 bold simplification 8221 of bank

Thousands of jobs are being lost as a result.


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By :  ,  Financial Analyst

The share price of Barclays is up this morning after the bank revealed thousands of jobs are being cut as part of a "bold simplification" of the bank.

Investors responded positively to the news, which was revealed in a statement by the bank's chief executive Antony Jenkins.

A "bad bank" is to be set up by Barclays and the plan is for this to sell or run down £115 billion of non-core operations. As a result of the major restructuring that is set to take place at Barclays over the coming months, it was stated by the bank that 14,000 jobs are going to be lost.

It is expected that around half of these are going to be in the UK and the figure is a considerable amount higher than the bank's previous estimate that it would cut 10,000 jobs in 2014.

"We will be a focused international bank, operating only in areas where we have capability, scale and competitive advantage," said Mr Jenkins in a statement.

Job cuts

Some 2,000 jobs will go at the investment division of the bank this year, while another 5,000 positions are going to be lost by 2016.

Investors responded positively to the news of the restructuring operations being pushed through by Mr Jenkins and in the early stages of trading on the London Stock Exchange this morning, the share price of the bank rose strongly.

By 08:21 BST, the bank was one of the major movers on the index and shares were already up by well over three per cent compared to the start of the session and stocks were continuing to increase. The bank's share price stood at 251.30, but this is still some distance away from the company's 52-week high for its stocks of 338.20.

Barclays is one of the biggest banks in the UK and the news of thousands of job losses could be a blow to the health of the financial sector in the country and this in turn may damage the economic recovery.

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