UNCERTAINTY again hangs over jobs at York's biggest private employer, Norwich Union Life.

Parent company Aviva has announced plans to slash annual costs by £350 million across the UK and Europe.

About £100 million of those savings will be sought from the life and pensions division of the group, which is handled by Norwich Union at York.

The announcement, which has angered Unite, the main trade union representing Norwich Union employees, comes in the wake of a process which has already seen the axing of 450 roles at York, part of a plan announced in September last year gradually to shed 4,000 jobs nationwide.

It also comes in the afterglow of a record half-year for Norwich Union Life in which sales soared by seven per cent to £7.415 billion and profits were up by 18 per cent to £413 million.

A spokeswoman for Norwich Union Life said today that it was too early to say whether or how many of its 3,000 jobs in York would be affected by the cost-slashing, "but job cuts are under consideration," she said.

What is known is that Aviva will trim £300 million from its UK operation alone under the two-year overhaul, which marks chief executive Andrew Moss's first major strategy announcement since taking on the top job in June.

It is also thought Aviva's recent partnership announcement with UK-based Swiss Re, to which the administration of almost three million life and pensions policies will be outsourced, will generate savings which would contribute to the latest target.

The Swiss Re deal allowed Norwich Union to offload the complexity of dealing with policies generated by different companies which ultimately merged.

It meant that 220 IT systems previously operated by Norwich Union to cope with the complexities could now be switched off, with about 1,000 Norwich Union staff transferring to Swiss Re on October 1.

The spokeswoman for Norwich Union Life said: "Obviously, as soon as we do know if the cuts are job-related we will contact the staff first as quickly as possible.

"We appreciate that it is a time of uncertainty and we will do all we can to overcome that uncertainty by speeding up the process."

Andy Case, national secretary for Unite, formerly Amicus, the union which represents about 1,000 Norwich Union staff in York, said: "We are angry and disappointed at yet another announcement about cuts which potentially affect jobs.

"We have called for a meeting with Norwich Union management. They seem to be willing to have talks and we may get together by the middle of next week.

"We had hoped the jobs cuts announced in September 2006 would have been the big hit', but the obsession for cutting costs still remains."