Goldman to cut about 3,200 jobs after review of its costs

Goldman Sachs is embarking on one of its biggest rounds of job cuts ever as it locks in on a plan to eliminate about 3,200 positions this week, with the bank’s leadership going deeper than rivals to shed jobs.

The firm is expected to start the process midweek and the total number of people affected won’t exceed 3,200, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. More than a third of those will likely be from within its core trading and banking units, indicating the broad nature of the reductions.

The bank is also poised to unveil financials tied to a new unit that houses its credit card and installment-lending business, which will record more than $2 billion in pretax losses, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information.

A spokesperson for the New York-based company declined to comment. The cuts in its investment bank are elevated by the inclusion of the non-front-office roles that were added to divisional head count in recent years. The bank still has plans to continue hiring, including inducting the regular analyst class later this year.

Under chief executive David Solomon, head count has jumped 34 percent since the end of 2018, climbing to more than 49,000 as of Sept. 30, data show. The scale of firings this year is also affected by the firm’s decision to mostly set aside its annual cut of underperformers during the pandemic.

Slowdowns in various business lines, an expensive consumerbanking foray, and an uncertain outlook for markets and the economy are prompting the bank to batten down costs. Merger activity and fees from raising money for companies have taken a hit across Wall Street, and a slump in asset prices has eliminated another source of big gains for Goldman from just a year ago. Those broader industry trends have been compounded by the bank’s mistakes in its retail-banking foray where losses piled up at a much faster rate than forecast through the year.

That’s left the company facing a 46 percent drop in profits, on about $48 billion of revenue, according to analyst estimates.