Bank of New York Denies It Is Axing 2,000 Jobs Worldwide

The Bank of New York (BNY) has denied Internet reports that it has laid off six hundred staff in New York in the first phase of a redundancy programme designed to reduce the workforce worldwide across all businesses by around 2,000. The reasons advanced for the cull included the revenue falls caused by falling stock market values, accompanying client pressure for fee cuts and the shift of fund processing from New York to Florida. This has prompted concern among BNY clients that falling staff levels will affect business performance. But a BNY spokesman says the reports are simply untrue. “We review staff levels against business activity and expectations on a regular basis and if we do any modest reductions it is in the framework of economic conditions we have all been living through,” he says. “We would do most of that through normal attrition. We always make sure that we are staffed properly to service our clients, so there is no concern about staffing levels.”