They are cutting 25,000 jobs over the next two years, and they will be selling business units to third parties - units that employ about 25,000 people. Selling a business to someone else is not firing that business's employees.
Two things should be fairly obvious:
(1) more and more banking is being done directly online and lots of transactions that used to require tellers in rented offices tended by security guards now only require an app, and
(2) post-credit crunch risk rules are being enforced, meaning that heavily risk-weighted businesses require more capital commitment to the point that they are less attractive to own.
I understand that the socialist contingent on FR believes that large companies are not businesses but jobs programs.
In real life even the morons at ZeroHedge who are invariably wrong about everything know that going into a bank and waiting to see a teller, or filling out a loan application in ballpoint pen so a loan officer can type it into a PC is about as sustainable a business model as renting videotapes from a storefront.
very good points!
But allow me to add one caveat: If one was inclined to think that the world economy was about to go to hell in the very near future, triggered by the Greek meltdown, and maybe spurred on by a full-out war in the Middle East ( think Israel takes out Iran's nuclear plants) and/or Russia invades Ukraine then it's a very good idea to get lean and mean...
I understand that the socialist contingent on FR believes that large companies are not businesses but jobs programs.
...
You do point out some good facts, considering the article is misleading. However, while money is important, when it’s made the top priority, bad things happen, eventually. The best companies have top goals other than money. When they execute their plans well, money, and jobs result.
There will always be people like me, who wouldn't know an "app" if it jumped up and bit them in the butt. However, I do most of my banking on line.