Bank of Ireland has transferred over 2,000 staff from its retail banking division in the Republic to the group’s central support functions in the face of reduced business activity. Elsewhere, total headcount has reduced by just 5%, but a hiring freeze remains and bonuses have been slashed as part of an ongoing cost-cutting exercise.

“Staff numbers are down as a result of a recruitment freeze, a policy of non-replacement of departing staff, and some redundancies resulting from the closure of our UK intermediary mortgage business, downsizing of our Business Banking UK activities and the winding down of some of our non-core international capital markets businesses,” said chief executive Richie Boucher.

Bank of Ireland has posted a net profit of €59m for the year-end 31 March 2009 – a 97% drop on the previous 12 months, but slightly ahead of analyst forecasts.

Though the bank hasn’t made any large-scale redundancies, it has moved 2,357 staff from the retail Republic of Ireland division to the group manufacturing arm, where they’ll be performing various support functions.

The bank also says staff numbers were “reduced significantly” in this arm – down 6%. Bonuses across all divisions were also either completely cancelled or substantially reduced, which contributed to staff costs reducing by 8%.

Wages and salary spend fell by €114m, to €849m, while share-based payment schemes slipped from €13m in 2008, to €3m this year.

Here’s the year-on-year comparison of staff numbers at Bank of Ireland: