Citi to Cut 11,000 Employees

Citigroup today announced it will be laying off some 11,000 employees as it seeks to to streamline operations and increase business efficiency, the bank said

The majority of the job losses, around 6,200, will come from Citi’s consumer banking unit. Approximately 1,900 positions will be lost from the bank's institutional clients group, of which more than half are in the Operations & Technology functions that support the business.

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Further, Citi will pursue a reduction in branches as it seeks to optimize its branch footprint in the most profitable areas, the company said. The markets affected by the reductions include Brazil (14 branches), Hong Kong (7), Hungary (4), Korea (15) and the United States (44).

Citi's CEO, Michael Corbat, who replaced former chief executive Vikram Pandit in October, said the company expects that the moves will generate $900 million of expense savings benefitting 2013 results and that the annual expense savings will exceed $1.1 billion annually beginning in 2014. Citi also expects the actions to have a negative impact on annual revenues of less than $300 million.

"These actions are logical next steps in Citi's transformation," said Corbat in a written statement. "While we are committed to – and our strategy continues to leverage – our unparalleled global network and footprint, we have identified areas and products where our scale does not provide for meaningful returns. And we will further increase our operating efficiency by reducing excess capacity and expenses, whether they center on technology, real estate or simplifying our operations."

Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio