These cuts could see Barclays with a workforce of under 100,000 people – the bank is shrinking before our very eyes. There’s now no formal plan in place, the person said, asking not to be identified because talks are private.
Advertisement
Barclays, Britain’s second-biggest lender by assets, has been hit hard by the slowdown in the global economy and has progressively scaled back its retail and investment banking activities in recent years.
Jenkins has been temporarily replaced by the bank’s new chairman John McFarlane, who had previously been responsible for a radical shakeup of British insurance giant Aviva.
Citing senior sources at the bank, the Times reported that as many as 30,000 staff could be laid off as part of a corporate reorganisation drive by the end of 2017.
Barclays rose 0.4 percent to 281.25 pence at 9:49 a.m.in London.
Mr McFarlane said the bank needed faster revenue growth, adding that the share price was unchanged on six years ago and dividends “low and flat”.
Barclays PLC may see drastic reductions to its workforce in the coming years as it plans to shed a portion of its employee base after firing CEO Antony Jenkins later this month, media reports said Sunday.
Jenkins was sacked by the bank’s board of directors earlier in the month as they decided to look for a candidate with a “new set of skills” to provide a boost to the bank’s turnaround.
RBS cut headcount from 184 500 in 2008 to 89 700 at the end of December, while Lloyds reduced staff numbers from 132 000 to 95 088 over the same period.
“There is significant scope for cost cutting on the retail banking side”, Cenkos Securities analyst Sandy Chen said.
Advertisement
The City watchdog inspected Barclays 186 times in 2014, 100 times more than the next most visited bank, HSBC, which was subject to 85 encounters, an FOI by Bloomberg revealed.
