Layoffs Watch 2016: If You Work At A Bank, Gird Your Loins

Apparently no one is safe.

Author:: Bess Levin
Publish date:: Dec 14, 2015
Updated on: Jan 14, 2019

According to the Financial Times, Barclays and BNP Paribas will lead the way with big cuts, the news of which they'll put out there in the next few months. So, mark your calendars.

At Barclays, the axe will fall on March 1 when chief executive Jes Staley unveils a fresh strategy with the bank’s annual results. The announcement will include Barclays’ plans to move more quickly to shrink its investment bank, which employs about 20,000 people...BNP Paribas’s new corporate and institutional banking chief Yann Gérardin will announce a new cost cutting plan in February.

But it's not the Brits and the French who get to have all the fun. Stateside investment banks will reportedly be doing some house cleaning of their own.

Analysts believe 2016’s misery could be more widespread than just those two banks. New regulations mean all banks must hold more equity, and that means they have to earn higher profits to keep return on equity at the levels investors demand. “I don’t think we can rule out the end of job cuts until RoEs recover to acceptable levels,” said Jon Peace, London-based banks analyst at Nomura...Mike Mayo, New York-based banking analyst at CLSA, said that even though US banks announced fewer cuts than European lenders this year, their employees are still at risk in 2016.

Thousands more bank jobs under threat [FT]
Experts think jobs on Wall Street will take a plunge [NYP]

Related: Layoffs Watch ’15: New Barclays CEO Mulling Over Giving Additional 20% Of Investment Bank The Heave-Ho

Getty Images

The Swiss bank is said to be asking London bankers to turn in their ID badges, forever.

Cuts are said to have gone down with more a-comin'. Barclays PLC is cutting about 50 employees from its equities business, the latest effort by the British bank to reduce costs at its investment-banking arm. A week ago, the U.K. lender announced internally that about 10% of the jobs at its equities business across Europe, Africa and the Middle East would be lost, a person familiar with the matter said Friday. During the first half of the year, Barclays's equities and prime services business, which employs about 500 people, saw revenue fall 12% on the year to £973 million ($1.57 billion). The business has suffered as market volumes have dried up in recent quarters...The work-force reduction could be a taste of things to come for Barclays's investment bank. At the beginning of 2009, former Barclays Chief Executive Bob Diamond hired more than 400 bankers, mainly in equities and research, as part of a drive to turn the predominately debt-focused bank into a multi-asset powerhouse. Following Mr. Diamond's departure in the wake of a rate-fixing probe, new CEO Antony Jenkins has started a review of the bank's businesses to assess their profitability and whether and how they affect the lender's reputation. This, combined with tougher regulatory requirements, is expected to result in Barclays shrinking its investment bank, analysts say. Barclays To Cut 50 Equities Jobs [WSJ]

Layoffs are said to be underway at the British bank.

Earlier this week Barlcays promised not to dawdle when it comes to canning the 2,000 employees slated to be cut. Today employees in Asia got to experience that follow-through in action!

And it's going to need lots of employees' help to achieve it, by boxing up their things and leaving the building (forever).

The Brits are said to have alerted some staff that their services are no longer required at the bank.

This is not so much a request as a requirement you're unlikely to get around, unless anyone is considering chaining themselves to their desks.