Vienna - The Austrian daughter of Italian bank UniCredit will cut 570 jobs over the next three years as part of a plan to reduce the group's total workforce by 9,000 by 2010, Bank Austria announced in a statement Thursday.

Last week, UniCredit presented its three-year plan to downsize the number of its employees in Italy, Germany and Austria. In the same period, the group wants to add 1,200 branches and 11,000 jobs in Central and Eastern Europe.

The job cuts in Austria include 320 back-office positions that will be transferred to Poland and Romania. As Unicredit aims to unify its IT structure, 180 IT-related jobs will also be eliminated.

The bank would try to downsize its workforce through natural employee turnover, a spokesperson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

A significant portion of the total planned staff reductions will take place in the Rome-based Capitalia bank, purchased by UniCredit in 2007, Unicredit announced on June
26.

Unicredit's German daughter HypoVereinsbank (HBV) might lose 2,000 employees, German union sources said.

The Italian bank, like many other international financial institutions, has been hit by the market fallout of the subprime- mortgage crisis in the United States. Analysts say it is trying to boost earnings by cutting costs and expanding in eastern Europe.

UniCredit expects revenue growth of 19 per cent a year in Central and Eastern Europe, as it opens new branches in the region.

UniCredit operates in 23 countries throughout Europe, with approximately 180,000 employees as of June 2008. (dpa)