Economy Woes

As the economy continues to slide across the globe, the second largest bank in the US announced they are cutting 53,000 more jobs.

Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit said the cuts were to happen in the next few months...just in time for the holidays. Boo.

The cuts will take Citigroup's workforce down from 375,000 employees at the end of 2007 to roughly 300,000. The latest job cuts are on top of 22,000 positions already being eliminated.

A company spokesman said the cuts will be spread across the massive firm and around the world, but details on possible cuts in Canada were not immediately available.

According to the company's website, Citigroup has been operating in Canada for 50 years and has about 5,500 employees across the country.

Roughly 18,000 jobs will be eliminated through the sale of Citi Global Services and the company's German retail banking business. Citi is also planning to sell more businesses, a spokesperson said.

The remainder of the job cuts will come through layoffs and attrition.

Citigroup is one of the U.S. banks that have received public money from Washington as part of its bailout plan. The federal government injected about $25 billion US into the firm by way of a purchase of Citigroup preferred shares.

New York-based Citigroup has lost money in the past four quarters, including $2.8-billion US in the third quarter.

Its a pretty big shame. Things just don't seem to be getting any better. However, as this continues, world leaders have been meeting at the economic meeting in Washington and have said that progress has been made to some degree.