Diamond Bank Sacked Over 400 Workers

 It was a bleak ‘Democracy Day’ weekend for over 400 staff

of Diamond Bank Plc, as their appointments were

terminated by the mid-sized lender on Friday. Sunday

Telegraph’s findings revealed that although the latest

layoffs by the bank had long been expected by the staff,

they were still caught unaware by the development.

A source at the bank told this newspaper that when most

of the affected staff resumed for work last Friday, they

had no inkling that it would be their last day with the

lender.

The source said, “The first sign that made us notice

something was going on was that many people could not

log into their systems.

At first, we thought it was a network problem; but it

soon became clear that staff who could not log in had

been sacked.” The source further revealed that most of

the people who were disengaged were mainly middle

level staff such as Customer Service Managers (CSM) and

some workers in the Human Capital Department.

The source said, “As as at now, we cannot ascertain the

actual number of people that have been asked to go but

we heard that they are between 400 and 600 and that

many Customer Service Managers(CSM) are affected.

There had been speculation that Branch Managers were

compiling list of people to be sacked but nobody

expected that they had chosen the end of May to carry

out the exercise.”

Attempts by this newspaper to confirm the development

from a spokesman of the bank were not successful, as he

failed to call back with details several hours after she

promised to. Financial analysts have predicted that the

eco

nomic downturn in the country, coupled with

regulatory headwinds, would lead to many banks

sacking staff this year, as part of cost cutting efforts.

Indeed, respected economist and Managing Director of

Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) Limited, Mr.

Bismarck Rewane, predicted last January that banks may

commence massive staff retrenchment in Q2 2016, due to

the tough economy. Significantly, banks such as FCMB

and Ecobank had already announced job cuts this year

and there are indications that many lenders will soon

follow suit.

The tough economy has seen many lenders posting below

par performance for both their full year December end

2015 and first quarter 2016 results. In fact, Diamond

Bank, which held its Annual General Meeting (AGM) last

Friday, was one of several lenders that issued a profit

warning that it’s profits for 2015 will be lower than the

previous year.