British banking giant Barclays will cut 2,100 jobs in its investment banking and investment management arms globally, a bank source said on Tuesday.
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the cuts would be made in its Barclays Capital, Barclays Global Investors and Barclays Wealth divisions.
Barclays employs about 32,500 people in its investment banking and investment management divisions.
Of the 2,100 jobs to be cut, the source said about 1,300 would come from Barclays Capital, 500 from Barclays Wealth and 330 from Barclays Global Investors.
A bank spokesman confirmed that “we have begun a consultation process to reduce headcount across some parts of IBIM [investment banking and investment management] to ensure that we are appropriately sized given the current market conditions.”
“We will continue to hire selectively across those parts of the business that are growing,” the spokesman said.
Less than a week ago, Barclays announced plans to cut more than 400 IT jobs, saying it was doing so to run a more efficient operation.
Meanwhile, the troubled Dutch bank and insurance group ING will cut 750 jobs from its US operations during the first quarter of the year because of the economic crisis, the Dutch news agency ANP reported on Tuesday.
“Like many companies in the United States, we have to adapt our activities to market conditions,” an ING spokesman was quoted as saying.
ING has some 11,000 employees in the US. The job losses will come from its banking and insurance operations.
The Dutch government injected 10 billion euros (US$13.3 billion) into ING in October to help it weather the economic crisis.
ING is one of the world’s top 20 banks by market capitalization, with 85 million clients and 130,000 employees.
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