NEW YORK — Citigroup, widely seen as the sickest Wall Street bank, will make some of the most severe cuts in the history of U.S. business — 53,000 jobs — as it tries to slash costs and get back to basics before it’s too late.
The cuts, which will leave Citi about 20 percent smaller, are the latest step in a stunning remaking of the American banking landscape since the financial meltdown, an upheaval that has included the demise of storied investment houses and the conversion of others into commercial banks.
Citigroup, which employs more than 1,200 workers in Colorado despite not having a retail banking presence here, isn’t breaking out job losses on a local level.
Most of the company’s Colorado workers are employed in back-office and customer-service operations for its Citi Card unit in Centennial.
Another unit, CitiFinancial, provides personal, auto and home-equity loans through 25 locations across the state. Citigroup also provides commercial-lending, investment-banking and private-wealth-management services in the state.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., which has tracked downsizing since 1993, said Citi’s cuts are the second- most on record. IBM announced in July it was cutting 60,000.
At its peak in 2007, Citi had 375,000 employees.
About half the cuts are expected to come from selling off parts of the business. The bank has already said it would sell Citi Global Services and its German retail banking businesses, and it plans to unload more, a spokesman said. The rest of the cuts are expected to come from layoffs and attrition.
Denver Post staff writer Aldo Svaldi contributed to this report.
