Citigroup Reportedly to Slash 53,000 More Jobs

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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