Anticipating Hard Times Ahead: Barclays to Cut 30,000 Jobs

Barclays has reportedly announced plans to cut more than 30,000 jobs within two years, in a move that comes just two weeks after the bank's chief executive Antony Jenkins was fired.

More than 30,000 employees of Barclays, the seventh-largest bank in the world in terms of managed assets, will be laid off within the next two years, in a development that comes amid the bank's efforts to speed up a radical redundancy program after firing its CEO Antony Jenkins earlier this month, according to the British daily newspaper The Times. 

The media outlet quoted senior sources as saying that this cost-cutting program could reduce the bank's global workforce to less than 100,000 by the end of 2017. The program's goal is to solve the under-performance problems of the centuries-old London-based banking giant and double its share price, the sources said.

The layoffs are most likely to ride roughshod over staff; hardest hit will be the company’s middle and back office operations, where the biggest savings have been achieved in the past.

Stock specialists at the Barclays post work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange just after the closing bell on July 3, 2013 in New York

© AFP 2023 / Stan HONDA

According to the Times, the person who fills the shoes of the ousted chief executive may show more resolve when it comes to job cuts, and he is expected to cut jobs much faster and more deeply than Jenkins.

Commenting on its decision to fire Jenkins on July 8, Barclays said that "a new set of skills" is needed to tackle the financial challenges facing the lender.

The bank also said that Jenkins will be succeeded on an interim basis by Barclays board chairman John McFarlane until a new chief executive is appointed. 

Jenkins, who had been Barclays’ CEO since August 2012, said, for his part, that he took the helm "at a particularly difficult time" for the bank, which was in a more secure position by the time of his resignation.