By Lawrence White and Iain Withers
LONDON (Reuters) -Barclays slashed its workforce by around 5,000 jobs in 2023 as part of a major cost-cutting drive announced last year, the bank said on Monday.
The majority of the cuts fell in Barclays Execution Services (BX), the bank’s support unit, the lender said, confirming for the first time Reuters reporting from last November that the lender was eyeing thousands of cuts in that division.
“Barclays removed approximately 5,000 headcount globally through 2023 as part of its ongoing efficiency programme designed to simplify and reshape the business, improve service, and deliver higher returns,” a spokesperson for the bank said on Monday.
The cuts form part of a plan of “material structural cost actions” announced by Chief Executive C.S. Venkatakrishnan last year in a bid to boost profitability ahead of a presentation to investors in February alongside the bank’s annual results.
While the overall cost-cutting drive had already been announced by the bank and the cuts to BX had been previously reported by Reuters, the bank’s statement on Monday in response to a Sky News story clarifies the scale of its efforts so far.
Barclays has also trimmed its UK chief operating officer function, the bank said.
(Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru, Lawrence White and Iain Withers in London; Editing by Maju Samuel and Aurora Ellis)
