How safe are Anglo jobs really?

Both the Irish government and Anglo Irish have sought to reassure staff that they will remain employed in the wake of the bank's nationalisation, but analysts remain unconvinced of job prospects in the long term.

Last night the government announced that it was abandoning plans to take a 75% stake in the bank by injecting €1.5bn, and instead was placing it under complete state control.

"The judgement of the Central Bank, the regulator, the government and the National Treasury Management Agency was that the option of full state ownership must now be implemented for this institution to protect the stability of the financial system," said minister for finance, Brian Lenihan.

In a statement, both Anglo and the government said that "all employees remain employees of the bank" and that the firm would continue to trade normally.

However, one analyst, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said staff should not be completely reassured by the government's statement.

"There's a strong risk that they would run down the loan book going forward, and if they're not doing any lending activity that would obviously mean there will be less requirement for employees."

In a research note, Eamonn Hughes, an analyst at Goodbody stockbrokers, said: "The government has indicated that Anglo Irish will remain as a going concern. However, it is unlikely that the government wants to be operating a banking licence indefinitely, so over time, we suspect the objective will be to wind down the franchise - look at Northern Rock in the UK."

In July last year, following its nationalisation by the UK government, Northern Rock announced plans to make 1,300 staff redundant.