Insurance and telecoms jobs to go

Insurance group Royal & Sun Alliance is to axe 12,000 jobs from its 50,000 worldwide workforce by 2004.

About 5,000 jobs will be cut from the 17,000 UK workforce. These include 1,200 jobs already earmarked from the closed life insurance operation and 500 in general insurance. But a further 900 jobs will be cut from the general insurance business in Britain and 2,200 will go through outsourcing.

Meanwhile, manufacturing union Amicus MSF has warned troubled telecoms group Marconi that it faces strike ballots over job losses at plants in Coventry and Liverpool. National officer Roger Jeary said: "Industrial action is on the cards if one single member is made compulsorily redundant."