Merrill Lynch plans to cut 3,000 jobs

Richmond Times Dispatch and Wire reports
Published: April 18, 2008

Merrill Lynch & Co., the world’s largest brokerage, will eliminate 3,000 jobs in global market investments and support areas. The cuts mostly affect employees at headquarters operations in New York.

The cuts do not affect financial advisers or investment associates at most of the branch offices, such as the one in Richmond, a spokeswoman for the brokerage said yesterday.

She said she did not know how many people in the Richmond area are employed by Merrill Lynch.

The jobs cuts were announced as the company reported its third consecutive quarterly loss.

The first-quarter net loss was $2.14 billion, or $2.19 per share, after paying preferred dividends. That compares with a profit of $2.11 billion, or $2.26 per share last year.

The company cut 1,100 jobs in the first quarter, mostly from subprime mortgage division First Franklin.

“The current environment is still tough,” said Rose Grant, managing director in the investment-advisory division of Boston-based Eastern Bank Corp., which owns about 66,000 Merrill shares. “People are still reluctant to buy certain types of assets, and I don’t think we’ll see the end of that until later this year.”

Merrill rose $1.82 to $46.71 yesterday.