Publicly subsidised Lloyds Banking Group was slammed after it announced over 1,000 job losses yesterday.

The bank said 1,080 jobs are to be axed and another 310 "outsourced" on top of nearly 35,000 jobs culled from the bank's workforce since 2008.

Banking union Unite said the continuing butchery of jobs at Lloyds came as more than £2 billion profits rolled in and bosses pocketed huge bonuses.

Unite national officer Rob MacGregor said: "While staff at Lloyds Banking Group continue to work hard to deliver half-year profits of £2.1bn, management has confirmed it is to give 1,390 staff another kick.

"Some 1,080 employees of the bank will today learn that the company that they have worked tirelessly to turn around is rewarding them with a P45.

"Lloyds Banking Group is well on the road to recovery, with the chief executive officer being recently rewarded handsomely with a share bonus in the region of £2.5m, yet staff are being made redundant."

He warned that the union would fight the redundancies and said it had "sought an urgent meeting" with Lloyds to outline concerns.

"Unite remains adamant that as the bank continues to align its recovery to the UK's economic recovery, it is totally unacceptable that it persists in putting pressure on the public purse by making hundreds of jobs redundant on a bi-monthly basis," he added.

Economist and Socialist Economic Bulletin writer Michael Burke said the move was wrong when Lloyds is becoming profitable again.

"It has benefited from state subsidies running into the hundreds of billions," he told the Star.

"It could have been used as a pillar of a new type of banking, which directed investment to productive areas of the economy, to housing and providing a decent service for customers.

"Instead, taxpayers have bailed out bankers only to see jobs cut at the bottom and bonuses surging at the top. Not only is this grossly unfair, but it is already storing up problems again for the future."

In June last year Lloyds announced 15,000 job losses.