In 2009, SEB Estonia decreased its staff by 73 employees writes Postimees Online. “Most of the fall in staff numbers comes from not replacing those who have left,” said the communications director of SEB Estonia Tiit Vohandu. Swedbank, on the other hand, has lost 9000 employees. Swedbank press spokesman Juhan Siilimagi said “I want to say that this wholesale exodus of our entire Baltic staff did not happen because Swedbank is a ‘rotten awful place to work with an inexperienced and brain dead local management team who have been neutered by the Swedes because they have proven unable to manage their way out of a wet paper bag without the guidance of someone who has the unfettered use of a cerebral cortex,” he said, referring to a joint letter signed by 8,920 of the 9000 departing employees.
It’s also not because ‘the bank has taken leave of its senses and turned on its good customers to cannibalize their businesses with punitive fees in a desperate effort of the bank to survive,’” he said in reference to a joint letter signed by 50 of the bank’s largest corporate customers. “And I believe it has nothing to do with the fact that the Swedish government has had to guarantee our corporate debt because we made such a balls up of our Baltic lending business. No,” said Siilimagi, "I think the reason we have lost all our employees is that they are fed up with having to wear those ‘ridiculous orange and blue polyester neckties at work every damn day,’ he said, referring to an email dated today and signed by himself. “Now if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I’m leaving. Please close the door behind you on your way out.”