In a massive new round of
layoffs, Citigroup Inc. is cutting at least 53,000 jobs in its investment bank
and in other divisions throughout the world, according to The Wall Street
Journal.
The move comes as Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit works to stabilize the New
York-based financial services company, which has posted more than $20 billion in
net losses during the past year.
Pandit will address employees in a town hall-style meeting
Monday morning, November 17.
He and his deputies have instructed officials at the company to reduce
employee compensation by at least 25 percent, the report said.
Managers can minimize the number of employees laid off by cutting higher-paid
traders and bankers, according to the report.
Earlier this month, Citigroup began notifying employees who were affected by
its previous plan to slash 9,100 positions over the next month. That figure was
about 2.6 percent of its 352,000-person workforce.
During the past 12 months, the company has disclosed plans to cut
approximately 23,000 jobs.
Citigroup is aiming to pare down its workforce to about 290,000 employees by
next year, another person said.
In another move, Citigroup is notifying about 20 percent of its credit card
customers that their interest rates are being increased by an average of three
percentage points, according to the Journal.
The company, which has 54 million active credit card accounts, posted a loss
of $902 million in the third quarter, compared with $1.4 billion in profit in
the year-ago period, as more credit card holders defaulted on their
payments.
A spokeswoman for Citigroup declined to comment specifically on the cuts but
said: "We are showing good traction on cutting our expenses, and we are selling
businesses and shedding assets that don't fit our strategic profile. We will
continue to carefully manage our headcount levels as we re-engineer the company
in line with our stated goal and market realities."
Filed by Aaron Siegel of
Investment News, a sister publication of Workforce Management. To comment,
e-mail editors@workforce
com.
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