RBS to cut 9,000 jobs worldwide

British lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to eliminate up to 9,000 jobs worldwide in order to repay a government bailout. The job cuts, half of them in the UK, are to be in the bank's back-office operations and represent more than five percent of RBS's global workforce. The Edinburgh-based bank said it plans to reduce costs by 2.5 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) to be able to repay a 20-billion-pound taxpayer bailout as soon as possible. The cuts are in addition to the 2,700 job losses already announced by RBS in Britain this year. RBS said in a Tuesday statement that the actual number of job losses might be 'significantly lower than this' and that compulsory redundancies will be used only as a last resort. "We have set a new strategy for RBS to restore the bank to standalone strength as soon as practicable," RBS Chief Executive Stephen Hester said in a statement. "To do so we need to cut our costs, as in all businesses, given the current recession." The British government increased on Tuesday its stake in RBS to 70 percent after investors shunned a rights offering. The whole company employs more than 170,000 people, of whom 106,000 work in the UK.