18/06/2013

Third And Largest Round Of Cuts Made To Army Personnel

The biggest round of job cuts since the start of the defence review in 2010, will see almost 4,500 Army personnel being redundant.

It is part of an ongoing government plan to cut the number of full time military personnel from 102,000 to 82,000, while increasing the number of reservists.

The government have said of the cuts that the Army "must live within its means".

According to the Ministry of Defence, 84% of the 4,480 being made redundant have volunteered to leave. The remaining 16%, or 715 personnel, are compulsory redundancies.

It is understood that this round of redundancies does not apply to any active soldiers on duty on Afghanistan.

The effort to increase the number of reservists, hoped to reach some 30,000 by 2018, is thought to be reliant on the attitude of employers.

(MH/CD)

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