(Reuters) -BlackRock Inc, the world’s largest asset manager, is cutting some staff after growing in recent years, with 500 jobs impacted, a source familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The news was earlier reported by Insider.
The asset manager is reshaping its teams after dramatic market volatility last year, when U.S. stocks fell by their most since 2008.
BlackRock had 19,900 employees as of Sept. 30, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The staff impacted amounts to less than 3% of employees, the source said.
Earlier in the day, Goldman Sachs also began laying off staff in a sweeping cost-cutting drive, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The BlackRock cuts come a month after BlackRock Chief Financial Officer Gary Shedlin said the firm was freezing most hiring and reducing expenses due to short-term performance challenges.
The company is expected to post a 22.4% drop in fourth-quarter profit to $8.09 per share when it reports results on Friday, according to Refinitiv estimates.
(Reporting by Niket Nishant and Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru and Megan Davies in New York; Editing by Devika Syamnath and Chris Reese)
