HR staff at the RAC and Norwich Union face an uncertain few weeks, after the insurer’s parent company Aviva announced it would cut 1,700 jobs to pay for its £1.1bn takeover of the motoring services group.
Announcing the deal, Aviva said it will strip £80m in costs out of the RAC by cutting 900 back-office jobs and merging call centres with Norwich Union offices around the UK.
It will shift another 800 jobs offshore, adding to Aviva’s growing presence in India.
Last year, Aviva cut 5,000 jobs in the UK, reducing its workforce to 28,000.
Amicus regional officer, Andy Case, said: “Staff will understandably be very worried by this announcement and we are becoming increasingly concerned that staff have to learn of their fate from the radio at breakfast. Amicus is working to ensure that there will be no compulsory redundancies.”
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Aviva said it was too early to say where the job losses will fall or give any guarantees about the future of the RAC’s head office near Marlow, Buckinghamshire.
It promised, however, not to reduce “customer-facing” jobs such as the 1,500 who work directly in RAC breakdown and recovery or instructors at its BSM driving school subsidiary.
