Citigroup's latest cuts are the most by any US company since the global credit crisis began last year. They are also the second most ever, trailing the 60,000 that International Business Machines Corp IBM announced in 1993, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

The latest cuts would leave Citigroup with about 300,000 employees, down 20 per cent from the end of 2007 and about the same number it had at the end of 2005. People at the bank said the cuts should be made by the first couple of months of 2009.

STOCK UNDER PRESSURE

Shares of Citigroup, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, fell 19 cents, or 2 per cent, to $9.33 in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Last week, Citigroup stock fell into the single digits for the first time since Sanford "Sandy" Weill created the bank in 1998 from the merger of Travelers Group Inc and Citicorp.

Well over 100,000 jobs have been lost at the world's largest banks and brokerages since the global credit crisis began. In the last month, Goldman Sachs Group Inc began cutting 3,200 jobs, and Morgan Stanley said it will cut 10 per cent of jobs in the unit housing its investment bank.

Citigroup said it has a "very strong" capital position, and according to the person close to the matter has no need to further cut its dividend, which has already been reduced twice this year.

Still, many investors remain wary. Through Friday, the bank's stock was down 68 per cent this year, leaving Citigroup with a market value of $51.9 billion.

... contd.