British government to axe 5,300 army jobs

MoD has to reduce army number from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2017 due to £38bn hole in the defence budget.

08:55 23 January 2013

Up to 5,300 army personnel will lose their jobs this year. Redundancy notices will be issued on June 18. This is the third round of army redundancy that aims to reduce army numbers from 102,000 to 82,000 by 2017. This is because of the £38bn hole in the defence budget.

Meanwhile, Labour isn’t sure that this is the best strategy following the recent hostage crisis in Algeria. In addition, there are still concerns that the UK may face a growing battle with Islamist extremism in North Africa.

However, Defence minister Mark Francois said that Ministry of Defence will still retain its capability to meet the challenges of the future.

Meanwhile, Catherine Spencer from the Army Families Federation calls the move as “complicated and worrying process for families.”

"The family are more likely to accompany a soldier, they are quite likely to be living in service family accommodation, so they're going to be asking themselves where they're going to be living, what their soldier is going to do for a job, where their children are going to go to school and, quite often, whether their spouse will lose their job because they'll have to relocate to another area."