Citigroup Inc may begin another round of job reductions as soon as this week as part of a plan to cut its trading and investment-banking workforce by 10 percent, said a person with knowledge of the matter.
The largest US bank is about halfway through the 6,000 job cuts at the division signaled in March, said the person, who declined to be identified because Citigroup hasn’t disclosed the plans publicly.
The company employs about 300,000 people worldwide and has announced more than 13,000 job reductions this year.
Chief executive officer Vikram Pandit is lowering costs and shedding assets after the New York-based company reported two straight quarterly losses totaling US$15 billion.
The world’s largest banks and brokerage firms have slashed more than 80,000 jobs since subprime mortgage defaults infected credit markets and led to almost US$400 billion of writedowns and losses.
I see more downsizing to come, said Andy Mantel, managing director of Pacific Sun Investment Management Ltd in Hong Kong. Banks need to take precautionary measures.
Citigroup has disclosed plans to eliminate more jobs during the past year than any other financial institution, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.
UBS AG, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and Merrill Lynch & Co are among the companies to announce more than 5,000 job reductions.
Citi indicated earlier this year that it would be resizing this business in response to market conditions and as part of our ongoing re-engineering efforts, said Dan Noonan, a spokesman for the division, in a prepared statement.
The company probably will report a second-quarter loss of US$40 a share after US$8.7 billion of asset writedowns, UBS analyst Glenn Schorr said in a note to clients on Friday.
Schorr’s prediction came after chief financial officer Gary Crittenden forecast substantial additional writedowns and more losses on consumer loans. Citigroup’s US$42 billion of credit losses and writedowns since last year account for about 10 percent of the global total, Bloomberg data shows.
Citigroup has lost more than any company in the mortgage market rout and its shares tumbled 63 percent in the past year.
Pandit, 51, was promoted in December to replace Charles Prince, who was ousted two months earlier.
Citigroup said in January it would eliminate about 4,000 jobs in the securities division, and said two months later that the number had increased by about 2,000.
Citigroup then said in April it would slash 7,000 jobs outside the investment banking group over the next year, and executives have said further reductions are likely.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that employees may begin receiving termination notices this week.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the biggest US securities firm, will get rid of as much as 10 percent of the jobs in its investment banking division in one of the company’s largest single rounds of headcount reductions this year, the Financial Times reported yesterday, without citing anyone.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary