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Commerzbank ‘to shed 5,000 jobs’

Commerzbank, Germany's second largest bank, looks set to shed 5,000 jobs, it emerged on Tuesday. The move is part of an attempt to recover from heavy losses incurred during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Commerzbank 'to shed 5,000 jobs'
Photo: DPA

Discussions about job cuts have, business daily Handelsblatt said, been ongoing since February. In the first quarter of this year, the bank set aside reserves of almost €500 million to cover the cost of redundancies.

Commerzbank employs 41,000 people and a further 13,000 in subsidiary companies. It’s unclear how many jobs will be lost at the primary concern.

What is known is that the losses are expected to particularly hit Commerzbank’s retail or high-street banking division, which is suffering from low profitability.

While the bank booked losses of €94 million in the first quarter of the year, it was less than analysts had predicted and significantly less than in the same period last year.

In March, Commerzbank committed to undertake a €2.5 billion capital increase to repay further chunks of a state bailout it received during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

A final decision on the job cuts is expected on Wednesday.

The Local/kkf

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Emergency numbers fail in several German states

Callers to the emergency numbers 110 and 112 weren’t able to reach operators Thursday morning in several German states.

The 112 emergency number on an ambulance.
The 112 emergency number on an ambulance. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Boris Roessler

The emergency number 110 for police and 112 for fire crews failed around the country early Thursday morning, with callers unable to reach emergency operators for urgent assistance between about 4:30 am and 5:40 am local time.

The Office for Civil Protection and Disaster Aid is looking into these outages, which were reported in states including Lower Saxony, Baden-Württemberg, and  Brandenburg, and in major cities like Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, and Frankfurt. Cologne was further affected by cuts to electricity, drinking water, and regular telephone services. Lower Saxony also saw disruptions to the internal phone networks of police and hospitals.

Emergency services are not reporting any more disturbances and people should be able to once again reach 110 and 112 around the country as normal.

Investigators are looking into the problem, but haven’t yet established a cause or any consequences that may have happened due to the outage. Provider Deutsche Telekom says they have ruled out the possibility of an attack by hackers.

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