BARCLAYS is cutting 12,000 jobs this year, including 7,000 in the UK.

The bank, which has 140,000 staff in total, said it had already told about half of the staff affected.

The cuts came as Barclays said it had increased the total amount it paid on staff bonuses last year.

Unite union national officer Dominic Hook said: "Despite claims there would be no return to its old ways, Barclays is increasing bonus pools for those already paid unimaginably high salaries. At the same time, the bank continues to announce thousands of job losses for ordinary workers.

"There are big questions about how Barclays will maintain customer service standards as it cuts jobs and forces those workers that survive to be ever more productive.

"The culture change the bank promised will be less than skin deep if those at the top still hoover up obscene amounts of money while workers in call centres and branches struggle by on low wages and face the persistent pressure of job insecurity.

"The retail bank is performing well and workers will be angry that they are bearing the brunt of the cuts.

"Rather than reward the very few at the top and plan to cut thousands more jobs, Barclays should have used today to give a copper-bottomed guarantee that it will not close 400 branches across the UK - a quarter of its branch network."

The bank's total bonus pool for 2013 rose by 10 per cent to £2.38bn, from £2.17bn in 2012, with the investment bank's bonus pool increasing by 13 per cent.

"At Barclays, we believe in paying for performance and paying competitively," said chief executive Antony Jenkins, who has waived his own annual bonus.

Barclays said the job cuts would hit 820 senior manager roles, of which 220 were managing directors and 600 directors.

About 400 of those senior job cuts are from the investment bank.

Barclays said it was hopeful it could achieve the majority of the cuts voluntarily.

The fresh job cuts come after the bank cut 7,650 roles last year.