Citi's China job cuts said to include a lot of junior bankers
Citi might be cutting jobs in Asia, but that doesn’t mean it’s cutting them equally.
Sources claim that the bank’s recent China cuts focused on juniors, and that “non-producing” Managing Directors (MDs) in the country were generally spared.
This seems a bit surprising. Bloomberg reported back in June that the bank was letting go of “more than 20” people, and although most were expected to be at a junior level, one MD is a lot more expensive to keep around than one analyst.
The bank isn't commenting.
Citi's China cuts are part of its plan to cut 5,000 people worldwide – which is itself is a pretty small section of the bank’s 240,000 worldwide headcount, although CFO Mark Mason said that the cuts would be “largely in banking, markets and functions.”
Citi is only one of many banks cutting in China, where all-important equity capital markets fees are down 90% year-on-year.
The cuts come after years of hiring. Citi was bullish as recently as 2022, when it said it was hiring some 7,000 people in Asia, across all teams and countries, of which around 3,000 were to be in China.
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