Goldman Sachs to cut thousands of jobs - sources

STORY: Goldman Sachs will start cutting thousands of jobs across the firm from Wednesday, two sources familiar with the move told Reuters.

That’s as it prepares for a tough economic environment in the year ahead.

According to one of the sources, the layoffs were expected to total just over 3,000, though the final figure was yet to be set.

Bloomberg reported on Sunday that the financial firm would slash about 3,200 positions.

Goldman had 49,100 employees at the end of the third quarter.

It had hired a significant number of staff during the pandemic.

One of the sources said the layoffs are likely to affect most major divisions of the banks, but should center on Goldman Sachs' investment banking division.

Both sources said hundreds of jobs are also likely to be cut from its loss-making consumer business.

The bank's chief executive David Solomon sent a year-end voice memo to staff warning of a headcount reduction in the first half of January, according to two separate sources.

Institutional banks have suffered a major slowdown in corporate dealmaking activity as a result of volatile global financial markets.

The job cuts come ahead of the bank's annual bonus payments, which are usually delivered later in January and are expected to be down about 40%.

The bank restarted its annual job cutting program in September, which had been put on hold for two years during the pandemic.

The Wall Street giant typically trims about 1% to 5% of its staff each year.

These new cuts are said to be coming on top of those layoffs.

Goldman Sachs has declined to comment.