Barclays announces a further 2,100 job losses

Yesterday, Barclays announced it was to shed over 2,000 jobs worldwide (a 7% reduction in its workforce) in its investment banking and wealth management businesses. The job losses announced yesterday were in addition to the 410 job losses in its IT department which it announced last week.

However, today, the British bank has announced a further 2,100 jobs from its UK banking business.

According to the bank, the latest jobs will be axed in retail and commercial banking and the bank said it will take the necessary action in order to reduce compulsory lay-offs.

It was also announced yesterday that Merrill Lynch and Bank of America are preparing to axe almost 2,000 staff in London. Citigroup, Credit Suisse, JP Morgan and Santander have all recently announced job losses as a result of the difficulties in the financial sector.

The above job losses add to the 28,000 jobs already lost in the City last year, according to figures from the Centre for Economic and Business Research (CEBR).

Worryingly, the CEBR is predicting that 34,000 jobs could go this year in the financial sector.

Barclays, which has a UK workforce of almost 70,000 and employs 156,400 globally, said it continues to review its operations and resources and in today’s economic climate, this is even more important.

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