BREAKING NEWS: Barclays axes 7,000 investment bankers as it cuts 19,000 jobs in massive shake-up

Barclays today took the axe to its controversial investment banking division, saying it would sack thousands of highly-paid bankers.

A total of 7,000 jobs will go in its investment division, which has most of its staff in London and New York.

Some of those who are sacked are likely to already be multi-millionaires.

It will axe a total of 19,000 staff around the world by 2016 in a radical shake-up which comes after its profits fell earlier this year. In a statement to the stock market, Barclays said its business ‘will be repositioned, simplified and rebalanced’.

Its 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.

‘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.’

The move is a major change for the company which became notorious for its so-called ‘casino banking’ under its former chief executive Bob Diamond.

In 2008 it was forced to seek a bailout from the Middle East as its investments division threatened to drag the whole bank down in the same way as the Royal Bank of Scotland and other British banks.

Investment banking has been heavily criticised for its large bonuses and appearance of irresponsibility.

It was the investment banking sector which produced the financial devices which underpinned a boom in the American ‘sub-prime’ property market and which then threatened the whole global financial system with crash in 2008 when the US housing market started to fall.

The bank has already announced job losses across the group of 12,000 for this year, but this has been increased to 14,000 as a result of the investment bank changes announced today. 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.

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