Staff lay-offs at big banks show no sign of abating

Big banks in Europe and the US announced almost 100,000 new job cuts this year, and thousands more are expected from BNP Paribas and Barclays early next year, as the wave of lay-offs that began in 2007 shows no sign of abating.

The 2015 cuts, which exclude the impact of major asset sales, amount to more than 10 per cent of the total workforce across the 11 large European and US banks that announced fresh lay-offs.

The most recent came last week, as workers at Dutch lender Rabobank learned of 9,000 cuts across their bank the day after Morgan Stanley announced 1,200 lay-offs. Barclays and BNP Paribas, two of Europe’s biggest banks, will unveil job cuts when they announce strategies designed to strip out 10-20 per cent of the costs at their investment banks.

Barclays’ axe will fall on March 1st when chief executive Jes Staley reveals a fresh strategy with the bank’s annual results. BNP Paribas’ new corporate and institutional banking chief Yann Gérardin will announce a new cost-cutting plan in February.

– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015)