Goldman Sachs would be planning layoffs in October with a magnifying glass on unproductive employees

MADRID, 8 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The investment banking group Goldman Sachs is planning to undertake workforce adjustments from the end of next October to the beginning of November, with the focus on the least productive employees, according to a source familiar with the measure consulted by 'Financial Times'.

The percentage of workers affected by the cut would be in the lower range of 1% to 5% of them.

Goldman Sachs' workforce amounted to 48,500 people in December, of which a little more than half, 52%, were in America, 19% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and the remaining 29% in Asia.

Under current CEO David Solomon, Goldman Sachs' headcount has increased by 34% through September 2022 since the top executive's entry at the end of 2018.

At the beginning of June, the entity's president and chief operating officer, John Waldron, already anticipated that Goldman would carry out a workforce adjustment in an "extraordinarily challenging" macroeconomic context.

"We are immersed in additional specific actions regarding our personnel," said Waldron. "We are preparing for a more complicated environment," he summarized, not before adding that "it seems that we are headed for a contraction scenario that will last for a while."

Goldman Sachs anticipated the elimination of less than 250 jobs in the following weeks and that it would affect 'senior' positions. These layoffs would be in addition to the hundreds that were announced in September 2022 and the 3,200 that followed in January of this year. Although, at that time, the press estimated the number at around 4,000, 8% of the total workforce.

The stated objective would be to achieve a cost reduction of 1,000 million dollars (933.5 million euros). Waldron stated that the bank is in the process of fulfilling these plans.