The terrible rumour relating to AIB: 2,000 redundancies

This hasn't been confirmed by the bank, but we understand that the final number of redundancies at AIB following its restructuring will be 2,000.

Last week a leaked e-mail from AIB's chairman David Hodgkinson confirmed that the bank had reached the final stages of it strategic review and, while job losses were mentioned, a figure on the final number of redundancies wasn't.

There's been a lot of speculation about how deep the cuts will be, with Hodgkinson admitting that the restructuring will "require change of a magnitude never before undertaken by AIB".

The smart money was always that job losses will be in their thousands, but a source close to the situation has told us a that an eventual headcount reduction of 2,000 has been decided upon.

AIB has declined to comment on what it calls at this stage "pure speculation".

Before you start panicking, it's worth noting that any job losses will phased in over a period of time as the bank radically downsizes over a number of years.

The bank has also stated that it would prefer to keep all redundancies on a voluntary basis and would look to redeploy staff where possible. The transformation process is also likely to "require significant resources", said Hodgkinson in his note to staff.

Still, as the majority of redundancies seem destined to occur at a retail level, it's difficult to see any obvious areas for transfer. In the past, for example, Bank of Ireland has redeployed branch staff across to its group operations division.

But, as AIB shrinks, logic dictates that fewer operational staff will be required.