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BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, is planning to reduce its workforce. The layoffs amount to less than 3% of its workforce, as a spokesperson for BlackRock told CNN on Wednesday.
BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE: BLK) is an American multinational investment company based in New York City. BlackRock has US$10 Trillion in assets under management (AUM) as of January 2022. Along with Vanguard and State Street (NYSE:STT), BlackRock is one of the Big Three index fund managers that dominate the American market.
The trillion dollar company hasn’t conducted a major round of layoffs since 2019. And has increased its headcount by almost 22% over the past three years, as a BlackRock spokesperson told MarketWatch who added that the job cuts are coming amid an “unprecedented market environment.”
BlackRock was founded by Larry Fink in 1988. Last year, he defended the company’s focus on E.S.G. investing, pushing back “against accusations the asset manager was using its heft and influence to support a politically correct or progressive agenda.”
According to The New York Times, BlackRock’s emphasis on E.S.G. has drawn criticism as “either bowing to anti-business interests” or being “merely marketing”.
According to CNBC, some conservative groups and lawmakers have accused BlackRock of “woke posturing” to hide the company’s funneling of money to Chinese companies.
In June 2022, Riley Moore, the State Treasurer of West Virginia, said that BlackRock and five other financial institutions would no longer be allowed to do business with the state of West Virginia, because of their advocacy against the fossil fuel industry.
According to a CNN report, Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) planned to cut up to 5,200 jobs. In the previous week; Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) revealed that it is laying off around 18,000 employees. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) – a software company, is cutting about 10% of its roughly 73,000 employees.
Last year marked the second-best year of job growth in American history, and at the same time, a growing number of companies have disclosed plans to lay off workers.
According to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement company, organizations have announced 43,651 job cuts in December, up by 129% from the same period in 2021. The layoffs were the most in tech and media companies.
Nancy J. Allen is a crypto enthusiast, with a major in macroeconomics and minor in business statistics. She believes that cryptocurrencies inspire people to be their own banks, and step aside from traditional monetary exchange systems. She is also intrigued by blockchain technology and its functioning. She frequently researches, and posts content on the top altcoins, their theoretical working principles and technical price predictions.
