Citi's 50,000 redundancies 'includes fair share of IT jobs'

A large chunk of the 50,000 jobs to be shed from Citigroup will come from the organisations' IT departments, it has been noted.

The massive restructuring, which is responding to the effects of the current economic situation's effect on the group's business, will particularly affect IT support individuals, according to the IDG News Service.

It is believed that the mass redundancies at the New York-based company will account for 20 per cent of the worldwide workforce it had at its 2007 peak, measuring at 375,000.

The redundancies would be carried out before the end of the first quarter of 2009, according to Vikram Pandit, chief executive of Citigroup.

With the announcement that another 18,000 jobs will be cut after the sale of the Citi Global Services group and the German retail banking business, it is hoped that the cuts will result in savings of up to $50 billion (£33 billion) over time.

Citigroup currently has over 200 million customer accounts in more than 100 countries.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent).