THE number of workers wanting to take redundancy from bank Lloyds TSB will far outweigh the 500 volunteers being sought because of the low morale of staff, a union has claimed.

Unifi attacked the bank for axing the jobs from its branch network over the next four months and argued there was no evidence for the cuts.

The union's national officer John Bancroft said: "Normally we would be looking to fight against these job losses, but the reality is that because of the pressures and low morale, the number of staff wanting to take redundancy will probably far outweigh the numbers the bank is seeking.

"This is a tragic fact of life in the finance sector at present."

Unifi said stress was a growing problem in banking and warned against stretching an "already fragile" workforce.

"We will be looking closely at signs of understaffing following this announcement, such as unpaid overtime, sickness levels and performance against targets," said Mr Bancroft.

Lloyds TSB employs 80,000 staff, including 30,000 in its branch network. No branches are to close as a result of the redundancies.