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Army cuts: Hundreds more soldiers to lose jobs | Army cuts: Hundreds more soldiers to lose jobs |
(about 5 hours later) | |
The Government will announce the final round of Army redundancies today, ending a period of "significant uncertainty", the head of the British Army has said. | |
The Defence Secretary Philip Hammond will release details of the | |
job losses in the House of Commons later, a spokesman for the | |
Ministry of Defence confirmed. | |
It has been reported that the Gurkha regiment will be affected | |
by the redundancies. | |
The regular Army is being cut from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2020, | |
while the newly renamed Army Reserve - formerly the Territorial | |
Army - is being expanded from 19,000 to 30,000. | |
Thousands of jobs have already gone in the past three years. | Thousands of jobs have already gone in the past three years. |
The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Peter Wall, told Sky News that the last round of redundancies demonstrated | |
the military has done what was asked of it: | |
"This redundancy tranche marks the final leg in our reduction of | |
the Army from its former strength towards 82,500. | |
"It's the end of a period of significant uncertainty, albeit the | |
relatively small number affected in this final tranche who will get | |
our particular attention in making sure that they are fairly | |
treated and support their transition to civilian life. | |
"This actually draws a line and we are now concentrating on | |
drawing in the right talent to populate the future Army structure | |
which is all about our operational readiness for future | |
challenges." | |
brightcove.createExperiences(); | |
It is expected that, as has previously been the case, recruits | |
currently serving on operations will be exempt from the | |
redundancies. | |
The cuts come despite the Army launching a recruitment campaign | |
at the beginning of the year for both regular troops and reservists | |
after saying it was struggling to attract applicants. | |
Mr Hammond said then that a television advertising campaign | |
would "dispel forever the myth that somehow the Army isn't | |
recruiting". | |
He added: "Yes, the regular Army will be smaller in the future | |
than it has been in the past, and yes, there will be one further | |
round of redundancies unfortunately, but that does not mean that | |
the Army is not recruiting. | |
"Because the Army is an organisation which always recruits | |
people at the bottom and trains them up and allows them to progress | |
through the system, we always have to be recruiting." | |
PA | PA |
UK News in Pictures | UK News in Pictures |