Citi initiates restructuring with significant job cuts

Citigroup has embarked on a major restructuring process, affecting numerous employees at the start of Thanksgiving week. The bank, following months of planning, is set to implement a series of job cuts as part of what it is calling a strategic realignment.

This realignment involves reshuffling teams and dismantling an international management layer. The initial phase of the restructuring will see the termination of several hundred employees, predominantly at senior levels. The bank’s plan is to extend these cuts to thousands of additional workers, including those at lower levels, with the objective of completing the process by the end of the first quarter.

“The actions we’re taking to reorganize the firm involve some difficult, consequential decisions, but we believe they are the right steps to align our structure with our strategy,” CEO Jane Fraser said in a statement.

Internal discussions among staff suggest a potential reduction of about 10% of the workforce. Such a scale of downsizing would likely mean the loss of thousands of jobs across the organization.

A memo from CEO Jane Fraser to the staff on Monday detailed the impending organizational changes. The memo, a crucial communication amidst this significant transition, outlines the bank’s strategic direction and the rationale behind the restructuring.

The challenges confronting us can sometimes be what dominates the discussion about Citi, the memo read, but its important that we dont lose sight of the goals were working to achieve and the progress under way.

The bank’s decision to undertake such substantial job cuts reflects a broader trend in the financial industry to streamline operations and adapt to changing market conditions. Citibank had already announced that it wanted to strip out layers of management, reducing 13 levels to just 8.

“We have taken hard, consequential, tough decisions here,” Fraser said at the time. “They are not going to be universally popular within our bank. It’s going to make some of our people very uncomfortable. I am absolutely fine with that … It is absolutely the right thing to do for our shareholders.”

For many Citigroup employees, this Thanksgiving week marks a period of uncertainty and change as the bank navigates through its organizational restructuring.