Baku, January 11 (AZERTAC). Crisis-hit Spanish bank workers held nationwide protests on Wednesday, lashing out against top executives they blame for tens of thousands of layoffs in the industry.

Many of the protestors were employees of Bankia, the group at the heart of Spain's banking crisis with by far the greatest losses on its balance sheet.

It has so far received around 18 billion euros from a European Union rescue loan of up to 100 billion euros ($130 billion) for Spanish banks, and in November it announced 6,000 layoffs.

Unions say the banking crisis has caused tens of thousands of ordinary workers' jobs to be cut.

At the same time, they say, top executives such as former Bankia chairman Rodrigo Rato and the former vice president of Bankia parent group BFA, Jose Luis Olivas, have escaped punishment.

Rato, a former managing director of the International Monetary Fund who resigned as chairman of Bankia in May 2012 days before it was bailed out by the state, was questioned by a judge last month over fraud charges related to the collapse of Bankia.

Despite the unresolved questions, Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica announced Friday it had hired him as an adviser.

The Bank of Spain is also on the back foot after being harshly criticised for its surveillance of the financial system.

The report, required by Brussels as one of the conditions of the rescue loan for Spain's banks, notably recommended placing a central bank inspector permanently in each of Spain's 16 largest banks to more closely monitor their business.

The Bank of Spain noted that it already had inspectors based in the two biggest lenders, Santander and BBVA, for more than 10 years, and in CaixaBank, Banco Popular, and Banco de Sabadell for the past three years.

The central bank rejected press reports that said its own inspectors had criticized its failure to react adequately to internal irregularities.