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Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

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81–90 of 213 posts

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#81
What's going on with all these job cuts all concentrated now? The market is expecting the Fed to start cutting interest rates[0] in March and that has been bullish for the latter half of last year in the stock market. So why are so many companies cutting people? Are the March rate cuts too little too late or do they see that some damage has already been done and they're front running that? Or is it that layoffs is the only way they see to maintain their growth expectations set by wall street and thus it's a financial engineering move?

[0] https://www.cmegroup.com/markets/interest-rates/cme-fedwatch...

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#82
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment still pretty low. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une... The environment is much less forgiving of management mistakes, but someone's layoffs can also be a competitor's hiring opportunity.

The laid-off email job corporate worker isn't going to take a job for $15/hr at the Flying J unclogging toilets. You can't use the total national average unemployment rate, which has issues of its own, to say the economy is healthy. In the same way, the stock market indices aren't helpful either beyond catastrophic values.

Right, unemployment staying low through the layoffs show that the laid off have been able to find acceptable jobs.

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#83
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unemployment still pretty low. https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-une... The environment is much less forgiving of management mistakes, but someone's layoffs can also be a competitor's hiring opportunity.

The laid-off email job corporate worker isn't going to take a job for $15/hr at the Flying J unclogging toilets. You can't use the total national average unemployment rate, which has issues of its own, to say the economy is healthy. In the same way, the stock market indices aren't helpful either beyond catastrophic values.

I don't claim that it can be used to say the economy is healthy. I take issue with OP's claim that large layoffs necessarily imply recession. Unless you know that the laid off workers aren't rehired by a competitor, you don't know if the layoff isn't just an outcome of competition. The national unemployment rate is a proxy for it. At least at the first order, if a large number of people are being laid off (and this isn't the first layoff in the sector, Wells Fargo has cut over 40k jobs from their peak) then so far they are being rehired. And I agree with you, desk workers aren't going to take a $15/hr job at the Flying J, which is why I believe they were likely to be hired either by competition or at least in occupations consistent with their skill set and aspirations, else we'd see them show up in unemployment stats. Check sector stats too - very low for finance https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU04032216#

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#84
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re the only mega bank with both a 2% cash back card and a competitive HYSA

BoA has this, if you have at least $100k - a 2.625% cash back card, and with Merrill also has competitive HYSA (last I checked, 0.5% higher than Citi). BoA can be great if you have money, but sucks if you don't.

What do you mean have at least $100K? Like in one of their savings accounts? You can get 5% APY right now from Wealthfront in their savings, so you'd have to forgo a lot of interest to get that extra 0.625% over Citi's credit card.

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#85

What's going on with all these job cuts all concentrated now? The market is expecting the Fed to start cutting interest rates[0] in March and that has been bullish for the latter half of last year in the stock market. So why are so many companies cutting people? Are the March rate cuts too little too late or do they see that some damage has already been done and they're front running that? Or is it that layoffs is th…

This is everyone's last chance to trim their roles before the rate cuts. Once the rate cuts occur, the bull market will return, and companies doing layoffs (sending the message they are not experiencing growth) will be punished by the market.

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#86

What's going on with all these job cuts all concentrated now? The market is expecting the Fed to start cutting interest rates[0] in March and that has been bullish for the latter half of last year in the stock market. So why are so many companies cutting people? Are the March rate cuts too little too late or do they see that some damage has already been done and they're front running that? Or is it that layoffs is th…

I wonder if its people noticing that maybe they over hired and now is a better time than ever to fix that. I've seen lots of people use Twitter as a gut-check case study.

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#88
post #29

Housing is extremely expensive. I wonder how people pay rent, mortgage, and other expenses with so many layoffs.

This announcement is not layoffs. Citigroup is saying they expect headcount to be reduced by 20K globally by 2026. That may include layoffs, but will also likely be attrition. It's also not confined to the US labor force.

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#89
post #29

Housing is extremely expensive. I wonder how people pay rent, mortgage, and other expenses with so many layoffs.

Aren't we already seeing rent prices going down?

In the places that have built adequate housing, yes, a little bit.

https://www.redfin.com/news/redfin-rental-report-december-20...

Re: Citigroup Plans to Cut 20k Jobs

#90
post #11

Even with 947 branches I don't understand how you wind up with 200k employees. Assume every single branch is staffed by no fewer than 20 people. That gets you to ~20k employees to run all brick & mortar retail ops. What the hell are the other 180k employees doing? That's still more than all of Google today.

Customer facing positions are only a tiny part of what a large bank does.

And a shrinking part. OTOH...we have a few tens of thousands of people just in the customer support call centers.
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