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Hiring Watch '12: UBS Was Just Joking When It Fired Scores Of Employees In The Harshest Ways Imaginable

Remember last week when UBS called New York based employees the day after Hurricane Sandy to tell them they no longer had a job, and communicated the same news to London-based staff by deactivating their ID cards and cutting off their email access? The bank is hoping everyone is at the point where they can laugh about all that, as apparently management got a bit overzealous with its firings-- these things happen in the heat of the moment-- and actually let go of a few too many people, who are now being offered their jobs back. UBS has brought back several employees who were put on leave when it unveiled a drastic pullback from fixed income last week, and more could follow, sources familiar with the situation said. The Swiss bank stopped dozens of traders from reaching their desks in London last Tuesday, when it unveiled an exit from most of its rates and bond trading businesses in a strategic overhaul that will lead to 10,000 global layoffs. The bankers were placed on special leave until further notice, while in the United States UBS fired several fixed-income employees by phone. UBS has already brought back a small handful of employees who were on leave, two people familiar with the matter said. It could also ask more to return or rehire some where needed, said three other sources, including UBS insiders, adding that some desks were now too thinly staffed to operate properly, if they were desks the bank ultimately wanted to keep going. No hard feelings? UBS takes back some traders on leave amid overhaul [Reuters] Earlier: UBS Takes Swift Action On Job Cuts; Layoffs Watch ’12: UBS Tells Employees Not To Bother Themselves With Figuring Out How To Get Into Work (Ever Again)
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Remember, last week, when UBS called New York-based employees the day after Hurricane Sandy to tell them they no longer had a job, and communicated the same news to London-based staff by deactivating their ID cards and cutting off their email access? The bank is hoping everyone is at the point where they can laugh about all that, as apparently management got a bit overzealous with its firings-- these things happen in the heat of the moment-- and actually let go of a few too many people, who are now being offered their jobs back.

UBS has brought back several employees who were put on leave when it unveiled a drastic pullback from fixed income last week, and more could follow, sources familiar with the situation said. The Swiss bank stopped dozens of traders from reaching their desks in London last Tuesday, when it unveiled an exit from most of its rates and bond trading businesses in a strategic overhaul that will lead to 10,000 global layoffs. The bankers were placed on special leave until further notice, while in the United States UBS fired several fixed-income employees by phone. UBS has already brought back a small handful of employees who were on leave, two people familiar with the matter said. It could also ask more to return or rehire some where needed, said three other sources, including UBS insiders, adding that some desks were now too thinly staffed to operate properly.

No hard feelings?

UBS takes back some traders on leave amid overhaul [Reuters]
Earlier: UBS Takes Swift Action On Job Cuts;Layoffs Watch ’12: UBS Tells Employees Not To Bother Themselves With Figuring Out How To Get Into Work (Ever Again)

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Layoffs/Hiring Watch '12: UBS

The Swiss bank is said to be planning a big round of cuts in the investment bank with the aim of saving a bunch of money, which it will then spend on luring in "more promising talent." is embarking on a new round of job cuts within its investment bank, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Swiss bank grapples with a downturn in business that shows few signs of abating and considers a further restructuring of the division. UBS will begin notifying employees Wednesday of a new round of job cuts totaling roughly 400, the people said. Additional job losses that could run into the thousands may quickly follow. According to one of the people, there is a "good probability" that when UBS discloses its third-quarter results next Tuesday, it will make clear which businesses it intends to focus on in the years to come, and which ones it will de-emphasize...This week's jobs cut will be spread roughly evenly across North America, Europe and Asia, one of the people said. They will fall more or less evenly on fixed-income trading, equity trading and corporate finance, although the latter will bear slightly more of the brunt than the former two divisions. While these job cuts are mainly mean to cut costs, they are also part of a plan to cull the worst performers from the investment bank's ranks and create room for it to hire more-promising talent, one of the people said. UBS Plans More Job Cuts [WSJ]

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS Has Something To Share

Management has decided to burn the investment bank down and start fresh. Basically. UBS is set to unveil a radical downsizing of its struggling investment bank next week in a move that will prompt the loss of up to 10,000 jobs across the Swiss banking group. Switzerland’s largest bank by assets will significantly shrink the trading side and complexity of its investment bank and as a consequence also cut thousands of jobs in its back office over the next few years, three people close to the situation said. The job cuts will amount to almost a sixth of the bank’s workforce of 63,500 at the end of June. They will not happen all at once and the precise number is still unclear... It comes on top of another – still ongoing – programme announced last year to cut 3,500 jobs. The new strategy, hammered out in several executive board meetings in New York this week and set to be announced next Tuesday, will lead to the closure of a sizeable part of UBS’s fixed-income trading operations and other capital-intensive areas of the investment bank. UBS To Cut Up To 10,000 Jobs [FT] Related: UBS’s Investment Banking Head May Have To Slash His Own Expenses “Like A Jewish Shopkeeper”

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS

UBS is said to be embarking on a "fresh round of cuts" in the investment bank, starting with the team in Europe. UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, plans to cut about 80 to 90 jobs in its European investment- banking division as part of a global revamp, according to two people familiar with the matter. The cutbacks, which are likely to take place before year- end, would amount to about 17 percent of staff within the region’s investment-banking division and include junior and senior bankers, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans are private. The division includes merger advisory and equity and debt capital markets. The reductions probably will kick off a fresh round of job cuts within the broader investment bank, which includes UBS’s fixed-income and equities units, said the people. [Bloomberg]

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS Tells Employees Not To Bother Themselves With Figuring Out How To Get Into Work (Ever Again)

Earlier this week, before a natural disaster struck the East Coast, UBS announced that it would essentially be getting out of the investment banking business and focusing its energy on wealth management, letting go of approximately 10,000 employees as it transitioned back to its tax evading roots. That was Monday morning, and while the bank had said that it planned to start cuts on Tuesday, most people assumed that the Swiss would wait at least 24 hours between the time Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy told residents to seek safety from the storm on their roofs, or power for the many who lost it was restored, to can a bunch of staff. Those people, however, thought wrong. Apparently when UBS decides to do something, neither wind nor rain nor is gonna stop them.

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UBS Chairman: Other Banks Will Have To Fire Thousands Of Employees Too, Y'Know

Difference is, UBS is the only one that's faced facts already, 'cause they're consistently ahead of the curve like that. Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, all those other guys will get a cold hard dose of reality sooner or later, though, and when they do they'll say, "Damn! UBS was all over this!" A day after UBS AG announced it was cutting up to 10,000 jobs by 2015, UBS chairman Axel Weber is warning that many of the Swiss banking giant’s rivals may have to follow suit...“I suspect that many banks have not yet really understood what the consequences of the new capital rules for business will be when they come into full effect in 2019,” Weber was quoted as saying in Wednesday’s edition of the German daily Handelsblatt. “We, on the other hand, see this new world very clearly,” he said. “Besides that, Swiss rules commit us to even higher own capital demands than the 10 percent capital quota that Basel III orders.” UBS Chief: Other Banks May Need To Downsize Too [AP] Earlier: Layoffs Watch ’12: UBS Tells Employees Not To Bother Themselves With Figuring Out How To Get Into Work (Ever Again)

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS

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Layoffs Watch '12: UBS

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