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Citigroup to cut another 53,000 jobs

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-11-17 22:33

NEW YORK – Citigroup Inc. is cutting approximately 53,000 more jobs in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt.

The Citigroup logo. Citigroup Inc. is cutting approximately 53,000 more jobs in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt.[Agencies]

The plans, posted on the company's Web site, are being discussed by CEO Vikram Pandit at the company's town hall meeting in New York Monday with employees.

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The company said total headcount is being reduced by 20 percent from its peak of 375,000 at the end of 2007; the company had already announced in October that it was eliminating about 22,000 jobs from those levels.

The New York-based bank has posted four straight quarterly losses, including a loss of $2.8 billion during the third quarter.

Shortly before the town hall meeting in New York, Citigroup Chairman Win Bischoff said at a business forum in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, that it would be irresponsible for Citi and other companies not to look at staffing in the event of a prolonged economic downturn.

"What all of us have done - and perhaps injudiciously - we've added a lot of people over ... this very benign period," Bischoff said.

"If there is a reversion to the mean ... those job losses will obviously fall particularly heavily on the financial sector," he added. "Certainly they will fall particularly heavily on London and New York."

In his comments to the Associated Press, Bischoff did not rule out the likelihood that Citi's leaders would go without bonuses this year - a move that would effectively amount to a substantial pay cut for the company's executives.

"Watch this space," he said when asked about lost bonuses.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said seven top executives, including Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, opted out of receiving cash or stock bonuses for 2008 amid the ongoing credit crisis.