Two weeks ago, Deutsche Bank announced it was set to fire “roughly” 23,000 people, or around a quarter of its workforce as new CEO John Cryan aims to cut costs as part of a reorganization undertaken in the wake of the ouster of Anshu Jain and Jürgen Fitschen.
Anyone who might have assumed that the massive layoffs at Deutsche Bank spoke solely to the bank's individual circumstances and thus aren't reflective of either the abysmal state of the European “recovery” or of broader industry trends, was disappointed when just hours later, Reuters reported that UniCredit, (Italy's largest bank by assets) was now set to lay off 10,000 across its Italian, Austrian, and German operations.
In all, 33,000 pink slips in a single day. As we noted at the time, “the layoffs don't say much for Europe's recovery from the debt crisis and may also suggest that far from creating jobs, the persistence of ZIRP has crimped margins forcing banks to make up the difference by getting leaner.”
Today, we learn that Bank of America is set to shed hundreds of jobs as Brian Moynihan looks to offset poor performance by cutting costs. Here's WSJ with more:
Bank of America Corp. is expected to announce layoffs in its global banking and global markets unit as early as Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The layoffs will likely result in a couple of hundred job losses, according to these people. Investment banks often trim jobs at this time of year to clear the books before bonus season.
Since the spring, Bank of America Chief Executive Brian Moynihan has said that if results from the trading business don't improve, the unit will have to cut expenses further. Bank of America's second-quarter trading revenue, excluding an accounting adjustment, fell 2%.
U.S. investment banks have struggled to adjust to new regulations that have crimped revenue, and a slowdown in some corners of the world economy have caused some clients to pull back on trading.
Bank of America has struggled more than most. It is the only large U.S. bank to post a decline in revenue from trading and investment banking in the first half of 2015, a time when mergers were frequent and central-bank actions created an ideal environment for trading in assets like currencies. The bank's 7% drop in revenue from that segment compared with a 7% increase at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and a 19% increase at Morgan Stanley, according to company data compiled by analysts at UBS.
