Citi signing off up to 6,500 pink slips: Reports

After posting a loss to the tune of $ 15 billion in the past two quarters and expected to see further billions of dollars of subprime crisis-related write-downs, Citigroup would dismiss this week 10 per cent of its 65,000-strong investment banking workforce across the world, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Quoting unnamed people familiar with the matter, the report said that the "pink slips are likely to be handed out on Monday."

The latest round of layoffs come top off close to 10,000 employees having shown the door earlier this year, as part of Pandit's aim to cut the company's annual expenses by $ 15 billion.

The company has more than 3,50,000 employees on its payrolls across the world. In another report, British daily The Times quoted unnamed sources as saying that that even senior managing directors would not be immune from the layoffs.

"Citgroups mergers and acquisitions bankers may bear the brunt of the cost-cutting because their ranks were not sharply reduced earlier this year. No major department of the investment bank is likely to be spared, apart from certain businesses in emerging markets and its lucrative transactions services division," the Times report said.

In April, Citigroup said that 9,000 jobs would go on top of the 21,000 eliminated in the past year.