After announcing its global retrenchment plan in May this year, German lender Deutsche Bank will be reducing headcount from its Chicago office, which houses units including front-office trading, operations and treasury. 

The bank will be laying off dozens of employees and consolidating space at its Chicago office as part of a broader plan to shrink US operations. Reportedly, some of the employees from the operations are being offered the choice of losing their jobs or relocating to Jacksonville, Florida. 

While operations functions including those for listed derivatives and supporting trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade are impacted by this retrenchment drive, corporate finance and corporate banking teams are not impacted by the cuts and will maintain a sizeable presence in the city.

In May, Chief Executive Christian Sewing had stated, “We are not yet where we should be. Therefore we must act, and we must act swiftly and forcefully.”

Continuing the big decision of cutting jobs, the bank has considered cutting as many as 20 percent of its jobs in the US and is further planning to reduce its rates sales and trading business in the region.

The firm in May had informed the staff that it was shutting its Houston office and was moving its New York headquarters from Wall Street to Midtown, slashing its footprint in the city by 30 percent. 

With personnel reduction already underway, Germany’s largest lender had stated that the number of full-time positions globally would fall from 97,000 "to well below 90,000."