Citigroup Chief Executive Vikram Pandit has announced 4,500 jobs cuts worldwide in the coming months as the US financial major seeks to trim costs in a bleak global economic environment.

The job cuts will begin this quarter and be completed "over

the next few quarters" across a range of businesses, Pandit said

at a Goldman Sachs Financial Services conference here.

The layoffs equal about 2 per cent of Citi's 267,000-strong workforce.

The company will incur a USD 400 million charge in the fourth

quarter this year on severance costs and other expenses related to

the job cuts.

"Financial services face an extremely challenging operating

environment with an unprecedented combination of market uncertainty,

sustained economic weakness in the developed economies and the most

substantial regulatory changes we have seen in our lifetimes," Pandit said.

"These trends will likely significantly affect the competitive

landscape in the coming years. While most of the job losses will

be in Citi's back-office and investment banking operations, almost

every segment of Citi's business will see a workforce reduction.

Pandit said, "Our efficiency goal is to eliminate 3-5 per cent

of our expenses each year," equivalent to about USD 2 billion.

"In fact, we generated USD 1.4 billion of cost reductions in

the first nine months of 2011," he said.

Citigroup reported revenues of USD 61.2 billion for the nine

months ended September, 2011.

Its revenues stood at USD 86 billion dollars last year.

Net income for the first three quarters this year stood at USD

10.1 billion, as against USD 10.6 billion for the whole of 2010.

Pandit said tightening credit spreads will likely result in

a hedging loss of roughly USD 300 million.

Citigroup joins a growing list of financial and banking companies

that are pruning their workforce to manage expenses in a weak global

economy that some fear could be headed for another recession.

Bank of America had in September announced plans to cut its

workforce by 30,000 and slash USD 5 billion in annual expenses. Goldman

Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon and some major European banks have

also announced job cuts.

Swiss lender UBS will downsize its investment bank workforce

to 16,000 people by 2016, axing 2,000 jobs.

Pandit said going forward Citigroup will "de-risk" appropriately,

"containing exposure to Western Europe and managing legacy US mortgage

portfolio to mitigate risk."

It would build on a diverse and high quality consumer loan portfolio

with a focus on faster-growing economies, he said.