Deutsche Bank has made the first of the 18,000 job cuts announced on Sunday as part of a radical reorganisation.
Staff working in share trading in London, New York and Tokyo were told that their jobs were going.
In London, some staff stayed away from work after being told their passes would stop working at 11:00.
A spokesperson said the aim of the changes, which will shrink its investment banking business, was to make the bank “leaner and stronger”.
Deutsche Bank is yet to specify exactly where the jobs will be lost.
But it will pull out of activities related to trading shares, much of which takes place
With almost 8,000 staff, Deutsche Bank is one of the biggest employers in the City of London.
Outside the bank’s London HQ staff have been seen speaking on their phones – with some visibly upset – just hours after arriving at work.
Some workers have been sent home while others are still waiting to find out whether their jobs are at risk. in London and New York.
‘It’s not an easy market right now’
In a bar near the huge, banana-shaped building that is Deutsche Bank’s London headquarters, some of the bank’s employees are having a drink.
Some work for the share trading businesses that Deutsche Bank is now shutting down.
They told me that around 800 people in London work for those operations.
“It’s not an easy market right now. People aren’t falling over themselves to hire more traders,” one glum-looking former employee told me.
Aside from those who buy and sell shares or the derivatives based on them, staff at Deutsche still don’t know if they’ll be casualties of the cull
“They haven’t told us,” one told me. “It’s all done on a need-to-know basis.”
Don’t you need to know?
“We’d like to know. But if we’re not being told, hopefully that means we’re ok.”
‘Painful but unavoidable’
“We will retain a significant presence here and remain a close partner to our UK clients and to international institutions that want to access the London market,” Deutsche Bank said in a statement on Monday.
In a conference call, Deutsche Bank chief executive Christian Sewing declined to give regional breakdowns of the job cuts, but confirmed that the process of informing those affected had already begun.
He described the job losses as “painful but unavoidable to ensure Deutsche Bank’s long-term success”.
Shares in Deutsche Bank were down more than 5% by mid-afternoon as investors reacted to the shake-up.
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