Brokerage cut 9,000 jobs

Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

NEW YORK -- Merrill Lynch & Co., the nation's biggest brokerage firm, said it has cut 9,000 jobs, or nearly 14 percent of its work force, as part of a plan to cut costs by $1.4 billion a year and boost profitability.

Merrill Lynch said today the steps would result in a pretax charge of $2.2 billion against its earnings in the recently completed fourth quarter.

About half of the job eliminations are from overseas and came after Merrill Lynch decided to scale back operations in Japan and Canada, said company spokesman James Wiggins.

The other cuts are "scattered around the world, with the largest proportion in the U.S., because that's where most of our employees are," he said.

Merrill Lynch also forecast that its earnings before charges would be between 48 cents and 50 cents a share for the fourth quarter and that revenues would be 8 percent below what it reported for the third quarter of 2001.

archive