It is a year to forget on Wall Street.
The final few months of 2011 have been a painful period of layoffs and cost-cutting in the finance industry, and it continued Thursday, as Morgan Stanley announced that it would eliminate 1,600 jobs, or 2.6 percent of its workforce, by the first quarter of 2012.
Many banks, facing economic and regulatory uncertainty, have embarked on widespread cost-cutting programs to improve profits. But Morgan Stanley waited longer than many of its competitors to make deep cuts to its workforce. This month, Citigroup announced it would cut 4,500 jobs. Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse and several other firms have also announced thousands of job cuts.
The job cuts have been severe. In an report released in October, DiNapoli estimated that another 10,000 people in the securities industry in New York could lose their jobs by the end of 2012, which would bring the total to 32,000 since January 2008.
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-16/news/30525047_1_job-cuts-credit-suisse-goldman-sachs