Spain's Bankia limits job cuts to 4,500

MADRID: Bailed-out Spanish finance giant Bankia agreed Wednesday to limit the number of job cuts in its restructuring to 4,500, unions said.

Unions and management agreed to layoffs "that in the end will affect 4,500 people, 400 fewer than what the management was proposing," said Comfia, the finance workers' branch of the major CCOO union, in an online statement.

In November the European Commission finalised the payment of 18 billion euros ($24 billion) to rescue Bankia, obliging it to restructure by closing branches and cutting jobs.

The company had at the time talked of cutting 6,000 jobs but later reduced that target.

The union said the bank was offering voluntary redundancy deals and relocations and raised the payments for those laid off to thirty day's salary per year worked. The agreement also included temporary pay cuts for those that stay.

Bankia workers called off a strike planned for Wednesday.

A long recession brought on by the collapse of a building boom in 2008 has driven Spain's unemployment rate to 26 percent.

That collapse in the construction market left Bankia saddled with unpaid loans.

The government was forced to rescue Bankia, making it a symbol of the country's financial crisis and a target for popular anger.

Spain then had to seek a broader bailout for its whole banking sector from the eurozone.