The Swiss bank UBS, which employs thousands of workers in Connecticut, will cut 10,000 jobs globally over the next three years. But the company is disputing a report that 3,000 of those jobs will be lost in the state.
At the announcement of the worldwide job losses, company officials said that one-quarter of those workers would lose their jobs in Switzerland — which has strict rules about disclosing such things — but gave no details on where the other cuts would come.
Due to what company officials called an “incorrect extrapolation” of percentages during the conference call with reporters, a number — 3,000 layoffs — was attributed to Connecticut. UBS says that number is wrong, but won’t give details on how many losses are expected in the state or when that number will be available.
Sources tell WNPR that the number is more likely in the “low hundreds.”
The company has been floundering — and awash in controversy over a $2 billion loss by a so-called “rogue trader.”
UBS had just announced thousands of layoffs last August when it cut a deal with the state of Connecticut to stay in its massive downtown Stamford headquarters; they’d been rumored to leave for Manhattan.
Under the deal, only officially signed in May, UBS would retain a minimum of 2,000 workers in Connecticut over the next five years in exchange for a $20 million investment from the state.
Company officials said today that no matter how many cuts eventually are made in Connecticut, they are committed to honoring that agreement. And Catherine Smith, commissioner of the state Department of Economic and Community Development, said she takes the company at its word.
“We do have to trust them to some degree during the time being. But so far, we’re not hearing anything from Stamford itself, from some of the residents and the people who work there that would indicate that anything other than the truth has been given to us so far,” she said.
The company does not disclose exact jobs figures in each of its many global offices, but it currently employs roughly 3,500 workers in Stamford. By year’s end, an audit — as part of its agreement with the state — should reveal the true workforce numbers.