Bank of Bermuda has let go a total of 19 people in Bermuda and a further 24 in offices around the world in the three-month period to the end of September, the company revealed yesterday.

In June this year the bank confirmed it was talking to staff about possible job cuts because of tough market conditions, but no figure was put on possible redundancies.

In the bank's third quarter report issued yesterday it revealed that salary costs had gone up by $5.3 million and “included redundancy actions taken in the quarter to achieve further operating efficiencies”.

After management was asked questions by The Royal Gazette on how many redundancies there were, a spokesperson for the bank said in a written statement: “During the third quarter, 43 global positions were made redundant, 19 of which were in Bermuda.

“As we have stated previously, this is an ongoing process and a result of our refining of our business goals and strategies and of the introduction of new systems.” The spokesperson said that Bank of Bermuda did not have a redundancy target and “positions will be rationalised as and when required”.

She added: “Every effort is made to place staff in alternative positions within the bank but that is not always possible and, where necessary, staff are given assistance in finding alternative employment.”

In the quarterly report yesterday, Edward Gomez, chief financial officer, said: “Operating costs have increased to support business growth while we remain focused on discretionary cost controls and improving operating efficiency. Third quarter expenses also include some one-time charges as we continue to streamline our support structure and focus headcount on areas of business growth.”

The company's operating expenses increased by $8.9 million year-over-year to $92.9 million. Salary costs were $5.3 million higher, and included redundancy actions taken in the quarter to achieve further operating efficiencies, the bank said. The bank added that pension and staff benefits declined $0.5 million as adverse currency movements but were “more than offset by lower recruitment and training expenditure”. General corporate expenses increased by $3.9 million primarily reflecting higher insurance costs from the year-ago quarter. In June this year a spokesperson for Bank of Bermuda said: “We have been open with staff in our discussions about the possible headcount reductions both here and abroad, as headcount is our largest expense. However, no targets have been set at this time.” She added that speculation about job losses was “totally unfair and unsettling to our staff” who she said were working very hard to meet the challenge of difficult markets. And some of the 14 staff who were sacked earlier this year for distributing alleged porn e-mails said at the time the bank had used the e-mails distributed as an excuse to get rid of employees without paying redundancy as part of its economy drive.