Citigroup to trim 3,500 jobs worldwide over the next year

US financial services group Citigroup, which employs 1,250 in Citbank, its operation in Dublin, is to cut 3,500 jobs worldwide over the next 12 months to offset its slowing capital markets business.

Some 2,200 of the job reductions will be made in the US, with expectations that the impact on its Irish operations will be minimal. Commenting on the announcement yesterday, Citibank's Irish chief executive, Mr Aidan Brady, said he expects the knock-on effect of this announcement here will be quite minimal.

"It is too soon to know what the impact will be here but our expectation is that it will be very small," he told The Irish Times yesterday.

Citibank is the largest employer at Dublin's International Financial Services Centre, where the group operates up to 20 separate businesses servicing various parts of the Citigroup organisation.

The 3,500 job cuts were reported in Citigroup's quarterly filing to the US securities and Exchange Commission.

In the filing, Citigroup recorded a restructuring charge of $209 million against second-quarter earnings "primarily related to the downsizing of various functions in the global corporate and global consumer businesses".

About $177 million of that charge will cover the cost of employee severance packages over the next year, according to the company.

The latest cuts come as Citigroup faces its slowest profit growth since the mid-1990s. In the second quarter of 2001, profits increased by 13 per cent to $3.79 billion but growth is expected to be slower in the coming months.

The Citibank announcement follows similar moves by other investment banks this year.

So far some 25,000 jobs have been lost among the top global players in response to slowing economic activity following the fall in stock market values of technology and telecommunications companies.

The bank has invested £100 million (#127 million) in the Republic and has built a new centre at the IFSC to handle back office administration and processing operations for Citibank.

It has been in business in Ireland since 1965.

Citigroup has reviewed job numbers in the past couple of years and a small number of jobs were transferred from Dublin to the UK as part of a restructuring of its business operations.

New activities have also been transferred from other European centres to Dublin.