by Calculated Risk on 5/22/2010 08:39:00 PM

Some news from Europe ...

From Bloomberg: Regulator Seizes CajaSur, Lender Hurt by Bad Loans

The Bank of Spain removed the managers of CajaSur ... a savings bank with assets of about 19 billion euros and 486 branches ... and put the bank under a provisional administrator.

This is a fairly large bank. The 45 or so 'cajas' are local government owned banks that are focused domestically with about 70% of their portfolios exposed to the Spanish real estate market.

And in the U.K. it looks like the proposed austerity measures will lead to 100s of thousands of public job cuts, from the police to active duty front line soldiers. The ministers are promising a “bonfire of the quangos” (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation), but it sounds like this will go far beyond the NGOs ...

From the Times: 300,000 jobs in public sector face the axe

Detailed research by The Sunday Times shows that at least 300,000 workers, including civil servants and frontline staff, will lose their jobs over the next few years.

Some estimates suggest that the number of job losses could reach 700,000.

These will include tens of thousands of health service managers as well as many thousands of doctors and nurses ... Thousands of police officers and their civilian support staff ... 20,000 jobs will be lost at the Ministry of Defence ... including some frontline soldiers ...