Aviva wields the axe to take job cuts to 1500 in one month

Aviva sponsoring UK athletics

Aviva plans to shed 384 jobs following the expiry of a life and savings joint venture with Royal Bank of Scotland.

Aviva decided to make the job cuts because the dedicated administration centre at Bristol will be closing. The job cuts will be phased in over the second half of 2012.

The move comes less than a month after Aviva almost halved its Irish workforce with 950 job losses.

Aviva said it would find new roles for affected employees where possible.

A company spokesman said: “We will of course do everything we can to redeploy the people impacted by these changes.”

Aviva yesterday completed the restructuring of its UK general insurance business, under which it combined several legal entities.

Meanwhile, Aviva shares were 1.3 per cent lower today as investors continued to fret over its exposure to the eurozone, especially Italy, where it has a 7.5bn euro exposure.

Italy’s 10-year borrowing costs soared above 7% once again today, deemed bailout territory, spreading panic in the markets that European leaders will fail to resolve the continent’s debt problems.