Ongoing efforts by the powers that be to stop the current financial Titanic from sinking are failing as banks in the totality of 2023 cut more than 60,000 jobs.
The collapse earlier this year of First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank prompted the private Federal Reserve and other central banks to facilitate the mega-merger of Credit Suisse and UBS, the goal being to keep the sinking financial Titanic afloat. Their efforts are failing, though, as the world descends into a financial collapse that is on the verge of becoming worse than the recession of 2008.
According to the Financial Times (FT), 20 of the world's largest banks slashed a whopping 61,905 jobs in 2023. The goal of these job cuts was to protect profit margins during a period of high interest rates and a slump in dealmaking and equity and debt sales. Comparatively speaking, banks cut around 140,000 jobs during the 2007-08 global financial crisis.
"There is no stability, no investment, no growth in most banks – and there are likely to be more job cuts," commented Lee Thacker, owner of the financial services headhunting firm Silvermine Partners.
(Related: Back in early November, we reported that America's largest banks had cut 20,000 jobs, with more cuts soon on the way.)
Job loss numbers don't include smaller regional banks
Keep in mind that the FT report only looked at the world's 20 largest banks, excluding all others, including smaller regional banks. Many of these smaller regional banks likely imposed job cuts as well, which means the true number of bank job cuts in 2023 is much, much higher.
Could it be that there are already more people who have been laid off from their finance jobs this time around than were let go in 2007 and 2008? It is difficult to say, but not out of the realm of possibility – and it is important to remember that more job cuts across all sectors are likely in 2024 as well.
Switzerland's UBS bank, which merged with failed Credit Suisse in 2023, reported the most job cuts of all. Metro Bank, a smaller bank, laid off a greater percentage of its workforce in 2023, while UBS laid off the most people by quantity in 2023.
Further down the list as far as job cuts went in 2023 is Goldman Sachs in third place, followed by Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Average, Lloyds Banking Group, PNC, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Westpac, Bank of Nova Scotia, Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Citigroup, Royal Bank of Canada, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, NatWest, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan Chase.
On Wall Street, around 30,000 jobs were cut this past year as well.
"The revenues aren't there, so this is partly a response to overexpansion," Thacker further explained. "But there is also a simpler explanation: political cost-cutting."
According to Gaurav Arora, global head of competitor analytics at Coalition, 2024 will "be a continuation of the story of 2023," suggesting the worst is still yet to come.
"When does the federal government shrink?" asked a commenter on a story about the ongoing banking crisis.
"I just read that they GREW last quarter," responded another about how the public sector always seems to expand while the private sector shrinks.
"Get a real job that produces things of value, you parasites," expressed another, speaking directly to the world's finance desk jockeys.
"Most banks are already 50% overstaffed and have way too many branches," added someone else to the conversation.
"This year (2024) is going to be the year of great layoffs and firings."
What will America look like in 2024 and beyond? Find out more at Collapse.news.
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