BlackRock Inc. is laying off a few hundred employees, becoming the latest big Wall Street company to reduce staff in recent weeks. The company is cutting about 1% of its global workforce – roughly 250 employees. These cuts include staff from the investment and sales teams, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.
“Improving BlackRock is a constant priority. Each year, we make decisions to ensure that our resources are aligned with our objectives and that we are well positioned to serve clients today and in the future,” Bloomberg quoted a company spokesperson as saying.
BlackRock CEO pushes for change
The job cuts come as CEO Larry Fink continues to reshape the company and expand further into alternative investments. After completing its $12 billion purchase of private credit firm HPS Investment Partners in July, BlackRock has been bringing in the new team and getting ready to launch new investment products for wealthy individual investors, the report said.
Additionally, BlackRock also carried out two rounds of layoffs last year, each time cutting about 1% of its workforce, Bloomberg reported earlier.
Industry-wide layoffs trend
Other major financial companies are also reducing staff to cut costs. Citigroup Inc. is expected to let go of around 1,000 employees this week. UBS Group AG is also planning job cuts this month, with another round expected later in the year as it shuts down computer systems it inherited from Credit Suisse, according to Bloomberg.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is set to cut around 10% of its workforce in the Reality Labs division as part of a restructuring aimed at investing more in AI. The job reductions are expected later this week, as the company plans to move funding away from certain virtual reality products toward AI-powered wearables, Bloomberg reported citing a familiar source.
Last year, Zuckerberg had asked Meta executives to explore ways to reduce budgets within Reality Labs.
BlackRock will announce its fourth-quarter earnings on January 15. As of the end of September, the company had around 24,600 employees and managed about $13.5 trillion.