The six largest Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Wells Fargo (WFC), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), cut their aggregate headcount last year by the most since 2016, according to a Thursday media report.
The lenders had a combined 1.09M workers at the end of December, down some 10.6K from a year ago to the lowest level since 2021, Bloomberg reported. Many big firms hired aggressively during the 2020-2021 deal boom, before having to pull back after a slowdown in 2022. Now, AI-driven automation and efficiency gains are starting to reduce the need to rebuild headcount by letting banks do the same work with fewer people.
During Wells Fargo’s (WFC) Q3 earnings call, CEO and Chairman Charles Scharf said the bank’s focus on managing expenses has helped with business growth, noting its headcount is down over 25% since Q2 2020.
Citigroup (C), amid its business revamp, was said to have finished 2025 with 3K fewer employees than it had at the end of 2024. The bank is set to cut 1K jobs this week, and CEO Jane Fraser signaled additional layoffs to come later this year.
Some firms grew their headcount from a year earlier, including Goldman (GS) (+2% Y/Y to 47.4K employees) and Morgan Stanley (MS) (+2.5K), Bloomberg reported. JPMorgan (JPM) also added jobs last year, albeit at the slowest clip since the onset of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, BofA (BAC) Chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan said during the lender’s post-earnings call that he sees the number of employees at the bank to fall this year as it leans on attrition.