Fears for Irish Jobs as Citigroup Prepares to Cut 52,000 Worldwide (Independent, IRELAND)

CITIGROUP, the ailing US financial giant, which employs over 2,000 staff here, shocked the market yesterday by announcing that it would cut up to 52,000 jobs by the second half of next year.

The planned 15pc cut in staff comes on top of 23,000 job cuts already made since the bank's employee numbers peaked at the end of last year and are designed to cut costs by 20pc to about $50bn. The bank warned that London and New York would inevitably bear the brunt of job cuts.

The group would not comment on Irish jobs. It has an Irish workforce of over 2,200 based in Dublin's IFSC and Waterford and just months ago announced a €35m investment for a research, development and innovation facility for the next generation of financial software to be based in Dublin.

Win Bischoff, the bank's chairman, admitted that, along with other banks, Citi had hired too many people during the long credit-driven boom and predicted a wave of cuts by financial services companies.

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