Citigroup plans 17,000 job cuts

Global banking giant Citigroup has announced plans today to reduce its workforce by 17,000 people worldwide but has said that there will be a "minimal impact" on the bank's Dublin-based staff.

The group employs 1,400 people at its IFSC offices in Dublin. A Citigroup spokeswoman said the reason Ireland would be largely exempt from the job cuts was because its Dublin staff worked in different areas to those reviewed prior to the restructuring. The company employs a further 300 people in Belfast.

"The reason Ireland is not really affected is that the businesses they were reviewing were not those that are located in Ireland. In fact we are still hiring in Ireland," she said.

The group said the staff cull formed part of a sweeping structural review which would help it save around $10.4 billion over the next three years.

Citigroup, which employs more than 300,000 people worldwide, has not given any details of how staff in different countries will be affected by the move.

A Citigroup spokesman added that some staff were being told today if they were affected, but it could be some months before it was clear where all 17,000 cuts would fall.

Around 11,500 staff work for Citigroup in the UK, up to 9,000 of whom are based at the banking group's Canary Wharf offices in London's Docklands.

The group said a further 9,500 jobs would be moved to "lower cost locations", such as India, with possibly two-thirds of those roles being cut eventually through natural attrition.