The financial industry is bracing for a fresh round of job cuts as Wall Street banks slash costs amid fears of further market turbulence and deepening economic woes in 2009, reports the FT. Executives and analysts say the redundancies, to be finalised this month as banks prepare next year’s budgets, could top 70,000 among US groups alone, adding to the estimated 150,000 financial sector jobs already lost this year worldwide. The cuts are expected to focus on the investment banking and trading businesses. Goldman Sachs last week began a 10% reduction in its 32,500-strong global workforce. Citigroup is scrapping 23,000 jobs, Merrill Lynch has lost an estimated 5,700 – nearly 9% of staff – while Morgan Stanley has made 4,400 workers redundant. This comes on top of about 23,000 jobs lost after the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Meanwhile, reports Reuters, HSBC is preparing to cut another 600 jobs in Asia after a September announcement of 1,100 job cuts in its investment banking operation, or 4% of the unit’s total.
