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BlackRock (BLK) Slashes Jobs Amid Budget Reallocation Move

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BlackRock, Inc. (BLK - Free Report) is shifting its budget to support areas of critical priority. As a result, the firm has announced layoffs, which will impact less than 1% of its workforce.

In a memo to staff, the company’s chief operating officer, Rob Goldstein, and global head of human resources, Caroline Heller, said that the fresh round of job cuts followed a recent business review process.

Despite the layoffs, BLK’s headcount at the end of this year will be higher than that at the beginning of the year.

BLK currently has nearly 19,500 employees across more than 30 countries.

Prior to these cuts, BlackRock slashed 500 jobs this January. The asset manager was reshaping its teams following geopolitical tensions, bouts of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and extreme market volatility in 2022.

Notably, BlackRock has a broad product diversification, which, along with its revenue mix and steadily improving assets under management (AUM) balance, will likely continue to boost the top line.

While BLK’s AUM and revenues witnessed declines in 2022 and the first quarter of 2023 due to the tough operating backdrop amid macroeconomic concerns, the trend will likely reverse in the future. Given the company’s efforts to strengthen the iShares and exchange-traded fund operations, and increased focus on the active equity business, its top line is expected to be positively impacted.

Over the past six months, shares of BLK have lost 3.2% against the industry’s 1.5% rise.

 

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Currently, BlackRock carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Layoffs by Other Finance Firms

As the overall investment banking (“IB”) performance became weak amid a decline in total deal volume and deal values, most finance firms announced job cuts across their IB divisions.

Recently, JPMorgan (JPM - Free Report) slashed 20 IB jobs in Asia in a fresh round of cuts.

Last month, the Wall Street giant cut about 500 roles across departments. Per a source familiar with the matter, while the majority of the affected positions were in the operations and technology divisions, others impacted were spread across retail and commercial banking, and asset and wealth management.

Notably, JPMorgan plans to trim 1,000 positions (15% of its total employees) from First Republic Bank, which it acquired earlier this year. The job cuts are part of the integration process.

Earlier this month, it was reported that Citigroup (C - Free Report) would likely cut 30 IB jobs and 20 more in its corporate banking unit in London. Per a person familiar with the matter, the cuts are necessary to reduce its cost base as the bank navigates through adverse market conditions that are dampening top-line growth.

This March, Citigroup initiated a round of job cuts, slashing hundreds of jobs across the firm, which accounted for less than 1% of its total workforce, per a Bloomberg report. According to people familiar with the matter, the company’s IB division, its operations and technology organization, and the U.S. mortgage-underwriting division were among those affected.


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