Barclays 'to axe 2,100 jobs'

Banking giant Barclays is to cut 2,100 jobs in its investment arm, sources close to the company said today.

The redundancies represent a 7 per cent reduction in staff numbers in the Investment Banking and Investment Management (IBIM) division across the globe, which includes the Barclays Capital, Barclays Global Investors and Barclays Wealth businesses.

A spokesman for the firm said: "We can confirm that we have begun a consultation process to reduce headcount across some parts of IBIM to ensure that we are appropriately sized given the current market conditions."

He said the job cuts would be global and figures for UK redundancies were unavailable.

Barclays' retail arm, which includes commercial banking and Barclaycard, is not affected by the cuts.

Redundancies at IBIM will be felt across all parts of the business and apply to both front and back office staff.

The spokesman said: "We will continue to hire selectively across those parts of the business that are growing."

Unite said 500 jobs would be lost in the UK, accusing Barclays of a strategy of "death by a thousand cuts".

The union accused the bank of failing to give workers the full picture of their plans for future employment levels.

Deputy general secretary Graham Goddard said: "This latest announcement of a further 500 job losses is the latest in a string of announcements by Barclays over the last few weeks.

"We have stressed to the bank that they should come clean with their staff in order to reassure them that they will not be the next victim of the bank's strategy of death by a thousand cuts."

Unite said just last week Barclays announced 400 job losses in its IT departments in London and Cheshire.

Mr Goddard added: "We cannot continue with this situation of daily job cuts without any justification or explanation of the broader strategy for the bank.

"In this economic environment, it is not acceptable for Barclays staff to arrive at work each day with the dread that they could be next in what appears to be a lottery of job losses at Barclays."