Morgan Stanley cut about 2% of its staff on Tuesday, according to people with knowledge of the layoffs.
The moves, reported first by CNBC, impacted about 1,600 of the company’s 81,567 employees and touched nearly every corner of the global investment bank, said the people, who declined to be identified speaking about terminations.
Morgan Stanley is following rival Goldman Sachs and other firms including Citigroup and Barclays in reinstating a Wall Street ritual that had been put on hold during the Coronavirus pandemic: the annual culling of underperformers. Banks typically trim 1% to 5% of those they deem their weakest workers before bonuses are paid, leaving more money for remaining employees.
The industry paused the practice in 2020 after the pandemic sparked a two-year boom in deals activity, but deals largely screeched to a halt this year amid the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases. The last firmwide reduction in force at Morgan Stanley was in 2019.
