Barclays to axe 19,000 jobs by 2016

Bank will also shut hundreds of branches as part of a major strategy review

(AFP)

Barclays is set to axe 19,000 jobs - including 10,000 in the UK- by 2016 and shut hundreds of branches as part of a major strategy review.

The bank will cut 7,000 jobs from its investment banking division by 2016 and the redundancies come on top of already announced job losses across the group of 12,000 for this year, which has now been increased to 14,000. It brings the total cuts by 2016 to 19,000.

It comes two days after Barclays announced that first quarter earnings from the division fell by half, meaning profits at the group slid by 5 per cent.

Barclays is also expected to announce that it will be hiving off underperforming parts of the bank and could close as many as 400 of its 1,600 branches over the next few months. The bank is to put its focus on the UK and US and scale back its Asian division.

Barclays' pre-tax profits fell 5 per cent to £1.7 billion in the three months to end March with all divisions except the investment bank showing growth. Retail banking profits were up 20 per cent, Africa up 25 per cent, Barclaycard 17 per cent and corporate banking up 42 per cent.

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Barclays chief executive Antony Jenkins said: “We will be a focused international bank, operating only in areas where we have capability, scale and competitive advantage. In the future, Barclays will be leaner, stronger, much better balanced and well positioned to deliver lower volatility, higher returns, and growth.

He added: "My goal is unchanged: to create a Barclays that does business in the right way, with the right values, and delivers the returns that our shareholders deserve. However, the way in which we will achieve this is different.

Today we are setting out how we will reach that goal and create the 'Go-To' bank for our customers and clients, our colleagues and our shareholders."