Why All the Layoffs, Morgan Stanley and Friends?

The numbers

Morgan Stanley has planned to cut 1,600 jobs, and this number comes on top of prior plans to cut 7 percent of overall staff in 2012. Trying to reduce annual expenses by nearly $2 billion, Goldman Sachs cut 700 jobs last year. Both trying to save about $1.1 billion, Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) are planning to make significant layoffs, with Citigroup looking at 11,000 job cuts. Topping most others, Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) has been working on 30,000 job cuts from 2011 in a plan to cut annual expenses by $5 billion. Altogether, more than 100,000 job cuts were detailed by U.S. financial firms in the past 2 years.

While Morgan Stanley’s layoffs may not be the largest of the banks mentioned, its continued interest in trimming the excesses that don’t benefit the bank as strongly is representative of the struggle many banks are facing in the current economic and regulatory environment.

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