The UBS CEO is going to get tough – Switzerland's No. 1 bank looks set to cull a large number of its jobs in the City of London.
The employees of UBS in London are in for difficult moments in coming weeks and months – almost one in three faces losing his job. That's at least what UBS boss Sergio Ermotti told «Nikkei» newspaper of Japan in an interview that was picked up by «Bloomberg».
UBS may shift as many as 1,500 jobs from London to other regions of Europe following the decision by voters in the U.K. to leave the European Union. «We believe that London will continue to be an important financial center, although maybe not as important as it is today,» Ermotti was quoted as saying by «Bloomberg».
Passport to the EU
Ermotti's outlook for the future of the City makes for chilling reading for the bankers in London, because several large banks seem set to reduce their presence in the capital of the U.K. That's as the companies can't afford to lose their «passport» to the EU business as the U.K. leaves the union.
UBS in 2014 already had announced it would shift as many as 2,000 of its London jobs to countries with lower labor costs. The bank currently employs some 5,000 bankers in London.
Not Alone
London isn't alone in losing banking jobs though: Paris and Luxembourg are other places where UBS has wielded or is about to wield the ax.
