Citigroup chairman doesn't deny job cuts are near

Citigroup's chairman is hinting the banking giant will announce more job cuts Monday, and isn't ruling out the possibility executives will follow peers at Goldman Sachs and forgo bonuses.

Various reports have suggested Citi may be looking to shed thousands of jobs through layoffs and attrition.

Speaking briefly to The Associated Press in Dubai on Monday, Chairman Winfried Bischoff said the company will make an announcement about its plans at 9 a.m. New York time, an hour after a town-hall meeting for employees is scheduled.

He did not deny that job cuts are coming but declined to comment further.

Citigroup has been among the banks hardest hit by the ongoing credit crisis. The New York-based bank has posted four consecutive quarterly losses including a loss of $2.8 billion during the third quarter.

As part of its plan to return to profitability, Citigroup is already in the midst of cutting 22,000 jobs worldwide. Through the end of the third quarter, it shed 12,900 jobs and it expects to cut the remaining 9,100 jobs over the next 12 months. Citigroup had about 352,000 employees at the end of the third quarter.

The bank has a companywide meeting scheduled for 8 a.m. EST that is expected to last about an hour. Citigroup spokeswoman Christina Pretto in New York declined to elaborate on what would be said during the town hall meeting.

Bischoff's comments came shortly after he told attendees at the Leaders in Dubai Business Forum that it would be irresponsible for Citi and other companies not to look at staffing needs in the event of a prolonged economic downturn.

"What all of us have done - and perhaps injudiciously - we've added a lot of people over ... this very benign period," he said.

"If there is a reversion to the mean ... those job losses will obviously fall particularly heavily on the financial sector," he added. "Certainly they will fall particularly heavily on London and New York."

Some reports have suggested Citi could be eyeing cutbacks of up to 10 percent of its work force. Bischoff said the company loses about 8 percent of its employees annually through natural turnover.

In his comments to the AP, Bischoff did not rule out the likelihood that Citi's leaders would go without bonuses this year - a move that would effectively amount to a substantial pay cut for the company's executives.

"Watch this space," he said when asked about lost bonuses.

On Sunday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said seven top executives, including Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, will not receive cash or stock bonuses for 2008 amid the ongoing credit crisis.

The seven Goldman executives made the decision to not take bonuses themselves, the compoany said.

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AP Business Writer Stephen Bernard in New York contributed to this report.