UniCredit CEO: any workforce reduction will be made thru early retirement - memo

MILAN (Reuters) - Any workforce reduction at Italy's UniCredit <CRDI.MI> will be handled through early retirements, its chief executive said in a letter to staff on Tuesday following media reports the bank was preparing to announce 10,000 job cuts.

In the letter, seen by Reuters, Chief Executive Jean Pierre Mustier referred to the media reports without confirming or denying them.

He said: "At UniCredit, any evolution of the group and all our banks will be handled through early retirement and, as always, in a socially responsible way and in alignment with the group's workers representatives."

Sources told Reuters on Monday the bank was considering the job cuts, equal to around 10 percent of its global workforce, as part of its new 2020-23 business plan to be announced on Dec. 3.

Mustier said in the letter the plan will be finalised in November and referred to comments he made in a recent newspaper interview where he said the bank would work to improve efficiency.

"This will be a fundamental lever in the context of weak economic growth and negative rates that we expect for the coming years in Europe."

(Reporting by Gianluca Semeraro, editing by Silvia Aloisi)