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Aviva to lay off 590 contractors

Published on Apr 3, 2009 | | Contract Rate Checker

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1100 permanent staff and 590 contractors are to be axed from Norwich Union Life over the next few months in an effort to improve the "operational efficiency" at the company.

The life and pensions provider, which is owned by Aviva, confirmed that the majority of the permanent staff job losses would take place in the IT and 'business change' areas, but that the impact on staff would be "minimal" due to redeployment and natural turnover.

The worst affected areas are Sheffield, York, Norwich and Eastleigh.

Interestingly, the job losses were announced in a year when Aviva saw a revenue increase in 2008 despite losses in some investment areas. The 'Norwich Union' name will disappear by June 2009 following a high-profile re-branding campaign.

Mark Hodges, chief executive at Norwich Union Life, said:

"We have made significant progress in improving our operational efficiency and are also nearing completion on a series of major change projects. Unfortunately, this means that a reduction in the number of roles in the business is inevitable. Making decisions that affect our people is always difficult and we are fully committed to doing everything we possibly can to minimise the number of compulsory redundancies..."