Goldman Sachs plans staff cuts in January 2023

The CEO of Goldman SachsDavid Solomon, confirmed that the influential Wall Street entity will carry out an adjustment of its workforce, made up of around 49,000 employees, in the first fortnight of next January, although he did not provide details on the scope of the cuts.

“We are conducting a careful review and although discussions are still ongoing, we anticipate that our reduction in staff will take place in the first half of January,” Solomon said in a message to the workforce seen by media outlets such as Bloomberg y Financial Times.

“There are a variety of factors affecting the business outlook, including tightening monetary conditions that are slowing economic activity,” he explained, adding that the focus for Goldman Sachs management “is on preparing the firm to weather these headwinds.”

According to several US media reports in mid-December, the US bank is finalizing a workforce adjustment that would affect some 4,000 workers, around 8% of its employees, with the aim of boosting the entity’s profitability.

According to the news platform Traffic lightsthe bank would have asked managers to identify those underperforming employees with a view to what could be a cut of up to 8% of its workforce by early next year, according to unidentified sources familiar with.

In this sense, the publication pointed out that Goldman Sachs It usually does without in a regular year between 2% and 5% of the employees, who are fired or do not receive any bonus, which is assimilated in the sector as a signal to start looking for another job.

Financial Times It said then that plans are still being drawn up, so it is possible that the final scope of the adjustment of “up to 8%” of its 49,000 employees will be reduced if the outlook improves, according to three unnamed sources familiar with the discussions.

One of the people consulted by the newspaper indicated that the cuts would be distributed among the different divisions of the bank, instead of concentrating on a single unit or country.

Last October, the bank announced a “realignment” of its businesses, after the attributable net profit of in the third quarter of 2022 fell 44% compared to the result of the same period of the previous year, up to 2,962 million of dollars.

Specific, Goldman Sachs announced a “realignment” of its businesses around three major segments: asset and wealth management; Banking and global markets; and Platform Solutions.

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