More Traders Are About to Lose Their Jobs at Goldman Sachs

Sat Jul 02 2016
Rachel Long (654 articles)
More Traders Are About to Lose Their Jobs at Goldman Sachs

Following a disappointing first quarter for large banks, Goldman Sachs gs has been making cuts in the budget and laying off staff.

The investment bank is reportedly cutting another 60 positions from its sales and trading team in the U.S. and U.K., according to people familiar with the matter as reported by Bloomberg.

Goldman Sachs has already laid off at least 353 other people in New York this year, according to the Bloomberg report.

The most recent cuts come after Wall Street banks saw a drop off in profits during the first quarter of 2016 due to weak market conditions and low oil prices. In the longer term, banks have also been increasingly pressured by the low interest rate environment, stricter regulation, and movements to more electronic trading.

While Goldman Sachs generally sheds the bottom 5% of its staff annually in part to make room for new hires, the bank has been forced to make deeper cuts than usual in some areas of its business. About 10% of its fixed-income staff division has been laid off—double the amount in a usual year, Bloomberg reported.

Goldman’s revenue fell 40% in the first quarter as compared to a year earlier, making it the bank’s fourth consecutive quarter of lower earnings.

But the bank is also diversifying away from its money maker in years past—its trading business—by moving into consumer lending and deposits. That would also give Goldman a more stable base of funding as regulators seek to increase banks’ capital requirements and reduce their dependence on short-term funding.

The bank has also added positions in compliance and tech, nonetheless the company’s overall head count dropped 300 to 36,500, in the first three months of the year.

Goldman Sachs declined to comment.

Rachel Long

Rachel Long

Rachel Long is our Desk Correspondent covering Stock Markets across the globe. She is based in New York