TheCable

Goldman Sachs, a multinational investment bank, is planning to lay off as many as 4,000 employees as it struggles to meet profitability targets, Semafor is reporting.

The news outlet, quoting sources familiar with the matter, said managers across the firm have been asked to identify low performers for what could be a cut of up to 8 percent of its workforce early next year.

However, some of the people who spoke to Semafor cautioned that no final list has been drawn up.

According to the report, David Solomon, the firm’s chief executive officer, is falling short of a profitability goal he set in February.

It said the firm has lost billions of dollars building a tech-forward Main Street bank called Marcus, that isn’t yet profitable.

The report added that Goldman’s workforce has swelled by a third since David Solomon took over as chief executive officer in 2018 to more than 49,000, largely due to a hiring spree in engineering and Marcus.

The company also accumulated more staff through GreenSky, a specialty lender, which had about 1,000 employees when Goldman bought it earlier in 2022.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Goldman Sachs usually fired about 1 percent to 5 percent of its staff each year but it skipped the layoff in 2020 and 2021.

Last month, big technology companies including Amazon, Twitter and Meta laid off some of their employees.