Legal and General increases job cuts total to 650

Insurance firm Legal and General is set to make 650 redundancies, following an announcement of £1.5bn losses.

The insurance company has offices in Surrey, Hove, Cardiff and London. It said the figure, which amounts to 10% of its workforce, included the 450 job losses announced last month. At the time Legal & General said HR staff could be included in the redundancies.

Union leaders said their members would be “angry and disappointed” at the decision.

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National officer of Unite, Andy Case, said: “Unite will do all it can to ensure that the number of job losses is reduced through redeployment and retraining. We will also be ensuring that, wherever possible, voluntary redundancy is offered to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies.”

Tim Breedon, group chief executive of Legal and General, said: “We expect difficult economic and market conditions to continue. Through 2009 we are taking a prudent approach to new business – ensuring that we balance our appetite with cashflow growth and balance sheet consolidation.”