Citigroup Inc., the fourth-biggest U.S. bank by market value, plans to eliminate more than 50,000 jobs, or about 14 percent of the workforce, and cut expenses by 20 percent from their peak as the global economy contracts.
Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit already reduced headcount this year by 23,000 through job cuts and the sale of business units, leaving the New York-based bank with 352,000 employees as of Sept. 30. The company plans to winnow that down to about 300,000 in the ``near term,'' according to a presentation on the firm's Web site. Pandit, 51, was scheduled to announce the plan to employees today.
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Above is a graph of total financial services employment for the duration of the latest expansion. According to the BLS, financial services added 513,000 jobs from November 2001 to December 2006 (the peak of financial services job for this expansion). Now we know that Citigroup alone has layer-off 73,000 or 14.23% of all financial service jobs created during this expansion. Something tells me this sector is going to take an incredibly nasty hit when this recession is over and done with.
