Business World

Citigroup Inc. is continuing to cut investment banking and trading jobs this year as the bank tries to lower costs while recovering from colossal credit-related losses.

"Each year we identify the bottom 5% of performers in the Institutional Clients Group, and some number of these people leave the firm," Citigroup spokesman Dan Noonan said Thursday in a statement. "This year we will have a larger number of reductions as we continue to strengthen the business and lower our expense base."

The Institutional Clients Group has about 60,000 employees, and includes the bank’s markets and banking unit and its alternative investments unit.

The bank’s executives said back in January, after releasing a nearly $10 billion loss for the fourth quarter, that they were slashing 4,200 jobs and there were more job cuts to come.

Citigroup would not confirm Thursday how many layoffs there have been since then, but The New York Times reported Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter, that Citi is cutting 2,000 jobs on top of the 4,200 announced earlier.

Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) employs about 320,000 people around the world bad credit payday loans. Even before the credit crisis started last summer, the company announced that it was reducing its staff by 17,000.

Most of Citi’s recent layoffs have been in its Institutional Clients Group. But the bank is also reducing staff in retail banking as well. Earlier this month, Citi’s home mortgage division said it is laying off 185 employees in the Des Moines area who worked in its home equity business.

Meanwhile, the bank has been closing several branches around the country this year - eight in Texas, six in Florida, three in New Jersey, one in California and one in Maryland, the company has said. 

Source