Layoffs Watch '14: Goldman Sachs
Employees, particularly those in fixed income, are reportedly worried about having an uncomfortable conversation with Gary Cohn's inner thigh.
A sharp reduction in trading revenues has sparked a panic inside Goldman Sachs as executives there brace for additional layoffs in the firm’s trading ranks unless business conditions improve, FOX Business has learned. People inside Goldman’s trading operations -- traditionally the power center of the big Wall Street investment bank -- say the place most vulnerable to cuts is in the firm’s fixed-income trading operations, where business conditions are weakest in large part because of regulatory limits on risk taking. That’s why people inside Goldman say management is likely to swing the ax further than the constant pruning of the firm’s ranks that traditionally takes place on a regular basis. Buttressing fears of head count reduction: remarks made yesterday by Goldman President Gary Cohn, who admitted the current trading environment is tough and could lead to job cuts. “What drives activity in our business is volatility,” Cohn said at Bernstein's Strategic Decisions Conference in New York. “If markets never move or don’t move, our clients really don’t need to transact... We’re not just waiting for things to get better.”
