By Valentina Za
MILAN (Reuters) -Italy’s second-biggest bank UniCredit has reached an agreement with labour unions to send 1,000 staff into early retirement and replace half of them with new hires, unions said on Thursday.
The move, sources have previously told Reuters, forms part of CEO Andrea Orcel’s strategy aimed at slimming down the corporate centre as the bank boosts its digital capabilities.
A downsizing of UniCredit’s central offices in Milan could also be an advantage if the bank were to pursue a tie-up with Commerzbank, in which it has become the biggest shareholder pending supervisory approval.
In that case Germany would become UniCredit’s main market.
While it has ruled out moving its legal base abroad, Italian authorities and union leaders have expressed concerns UniCredit could shift at least some central functions to Frankfurt to overcome German opposition to a deal.
UniCredit said in a statement it remained committed to investing in its commercial network.
Under the accord signed overnight, unions secured a number of benefits for the bank’s 27,450 Italian staff including higher meal vouchers and a renewal of the healthcare insurance for 2026-2027 on the same terms as in 2023.
UniCredit had over 37,300 staff in Italy in 2015, before it embarked on a long restructuring.
The UNISIN-CONFSAL union said there could be up to another 250 new hires over the next two years based on regular turnover.
UniCredit has committed to agreeing by Feb. 28, 2025 a productivity bonus that would reflect the good results the bank is set to report this year, the FABI union said.
Under the deal, UniCredit will invest to retrain 600 employees in its central offices, of whom 200 will be moved to branches as soon as next year to support efforts to boost fee income.
The training will see staff attend classes at a learning centre dubbed UniCredit University.
The remaining 400 will be reallocated based on the pace of digitisation of the bank’s central functions, and are expected to be largely redeployed to beef up depleted branch network ranks.
“The accord is important because of the role reskilling plays in it, an element which counters the potential need for further exits,” FABI representative Stefano Cefaloni said.
(Additional reporting by Andrea Mandala and Sara Rossi; Editing by Giulia Segreti and Keith Weir)
