Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Citibank to cut 53,000 jobs


When I was young man coming out of college, I took a job with a European Bank. Over the years I have switched around a few times, but more out of necessity then trying to get a few extra dollars. For many of those years I always wanted to work for a large American bank. Bank of America always came to mind when these thoughts came to mind. My thought was always that when my trading career came to an end that it would be easier for me to transition into another part of the bank. The European banks that I have been exposed to have not had the "foot print" in the U.S. to provide such a transition. Well years later I am still at a European bank and luckily still a vital part of the team (famous last words). Looking at the fate of 53,000 workers at Citibank (onto of the 23,000 previously announced) it seems that if I had made it to my "dream job" that life might not have been quite so good. Now of course you never know what would have happened but I guess for now I am happy with the way I have played the cards life has dealt me.

Now of course Citibank is not alone (my bank has been consistently letting people go weekly for the past few months),

Banks and brokerages worldwide have announced more than 200,000 job cuts since the subprime mortgage market's collapse last year sparked a credit crisis. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which converted last month from the biggest U.S. securities firm into a commercial bank, began earlier this month telling about 3,200 employees, or 10 percent of its workforce, they were out of a job, according to a person familiar with the decision.

Citibank's job cuts are bigger than any other financial institution, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. UBS, Merrill and Wachovia Corp. are among companies that have disclosed more than 5,000 job reductions.

this after Jamie Dimon said last week that the U.S. recession could be worse then the credit crisis that brought markets to a standstill earlier this year.....Wonderful!

I guess the moral of the story is to be grateful for what you have as things could be worse......just ask MARK CUBAN, as prison time could be in his future.

Good Luck and Good Currency Trading.

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Finally. Citi had this coming. I think we'll see more retrenchments like this. And I think we'll see systemically high unemployment for years to come. Back when I was taking macroeconomics classes, I learned that full employment was 7%. These days, it seems like 7% unemployment is a crisis. I recall hearing that rates of 13% to 15% are in store for us this time around. And I've heard that we are under-reporting our unemployment rate by 3% or more right now.

The funny thing is, I've actually started to invest again -- albeit in a ROTH and a thrift savings plan that is tax deferred. I figure even if the market falls below 5000, I'll be okay in five to ten years. I'm also going to start looking at energy ETFs and gold ETFs this weekend. I think now is the time to start scaling in there as well.

Interesting times....

7:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Edit: I learned that 7% unemployment indicated an economy at full employment...

7:53 AM  

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