Jan 9, 2024 - Business

BlackRock is laying off 600 employees

Hope King

BlackRock headquarters in New York, US, on Friday, Jan. 13, 2023. BlackRock Inc. clients continued to pour money into the firms long-term investment funds in the fourth quarter, seeking to capitalize on the preceding rout in stock and bond markets. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images

BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, on Tuesday announced that it will lay off around 600 people, or 3% of its global workforce.

Driving the news: In an internal email reviewed by Axios, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and president Rob Kapito wrote that 2024 presents a "distinctly different landscape" requiring "businesses across the firm ... to reallocate resources."

Ultimately, however, the company expects to have a "larger workforce" by the end of 2024.

Context: This marks BlackRock's third round of recent job cuts, Pensions & Investments notes.

The firm eliminated 500 roles in January 2023, and then cut even more last June.

The big picture: Banks and other financial institutions reduced headcount last year as rising interest rates choked deal flow and investments into new projects.

There were at least 62,000 jobs eliminated in 2023 by 20 of the biggest banks in the world, the Financial Times estimates — one of the heaviest such years since the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when 140,000 roles were erased.

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BlackRock is laying off 600 employees

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