Citibank to Cut Up to 50,000 Jobs

There will probably be more sad guys on trading floors today: Stock futures are showing sharp declines, in part due to news that Citigroup may eliminate 50,000 people (or 14%) of its global workforce, mostly by selling assets. And Britain's Sunday Telegraph reports that JPMorgan Chase will have cut thousands of jobs next year. In the auto industry, which hopes for some government help, cash-strapped GM is selling back a 3% stake in Suzuki to raise $232 million. Referring the futures and prospects for today, City Index's chief market strategist told CNBC, "This baby is going down and it's going down fast. I see no reason for anyone picking up the baton this morning."

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By Jen Chung in News on November 17, 2008 8:50 AM

Comments [rss]

Future Taliban

Poor, poor bankers. My heart goes out to you:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vuBChDTEea8

tingo

They all saw this coming. Or should have. They laughed at it:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2I0QN-FYkpw

Brooklynbobby

Citibank can afford to let at least 1/2 of the staff go. I worked there for a year about 10 years ago. I had to quit because I was going crazy with nothing to do.

EastRiver

Citigroup only needed to fire one person. Are you hearing this Mr Pandit?

Can we go hunt down Sandy Weill while we're at it? Look for him at a naming ceremony at a university, hospital, or some other building where he used our money to buy his name in stone.

NannyState

Citigroup only needed to fire one person. Are you hearing this Mr Pandit?

Rocknrope

^ More like Bartertown. We've already got the cage - two men enter, one man leave.

JacqueMehoff

so no one is losing their job, they're just losing their assets. plain English please.

GM

Assets shmassets. They've laid off all the low hanging fruit at this point, now they're 'selling' whole divisions or 'assets' as they call them. Who's going to buy them---if they were an asset they probably wouldn't be selling them, would they?

r1b2

Armageddon's coming.

Wza

I still say the Mets should've named their stadium after Met Life.

Jen Chung

@repsandwarrants--thanks, I'm making that distinction in the post.

repsandwarrants

much of the job cuts are coming in the form of asset sales. It is misleading to label these as layoffs. Citigroup will have 50,000 less people on their payroll, but not all 50,000 will lose their jobs. Assuredly whoever owns the sold off assets will lay some people off, but this article makes it seem that everyone associated with these assets will be jobless.

longacre

#1: Perhaps they would be boarding up the Citigroup Center rather than just laying people off without the bailout.

citizenerased

BBC says 75,000.

tingo

Wonder what this will mean for the 'unshakeable' nyc real estate market.

The system was bled to it's last drop, and I suppose we all have to pay now.