Commerzbank Job Cuts To Affect All Areas, Units

FRANKFURT-- Commerzbank AG's (CBK.XE) plans to cut between 4,000 and 6,000 full-time jobs by 2016 will affect all group levels and units, in Germany and abroad, although online bank Comdirect and Polish unit BRE Bank (BRE.WA) will be excluded, according to internal documents seen by Dow Jones Newswires Thursday.

The bank's cost-cutting plans, which include shifting workload to lower-cost areas and streamlining procedures in the retail banking business, were presented to the bank's works council Wednesday, according to the documents, and talks with labor representatives will likely start in February.

The bank didn't provide a breakdown of what planned job cuts will be for Germany only.

Compulsory redundancies will be the ultimate measure to achieve the job cuts, according to the documents. In Germany, companies can use options such as early retirement, natural attrition and part-time work to cut jobs without outright layoffs.

In the retail bank, Commerzbank has a jobs overhang compared with revenues, with current staffing based on calculations of 12 million securities orders in 2008, while the 2011 securities orders of 5 million marked only a fraction of that a whole previous figure, according to the documents.

Commerzbank's plans, announced in November, to invest 2 billion euro ($2.66 billion) in the business as a whole are only possible when revenues increase and costs decline, the bank has said. The cost cuts will also affect non-personnel costs, with measures that have already been put in place continuing.

Write to Ulrike Dauer at [e-mail]

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