Goldman Sachs is shaking up how it cuts low performers this spring

• Goldman Sachs is set to initiate small rounds of head count cuts starting next month, sources say.
• The Wall Street giant is known to oust poor performers, often through an annual companywide process.
• This spring, it's giving business-line leaders more discretion to set their timelines, sources said.

Goldman Sachs is planning to start trimming staff next month, reflecting a shifting strategy this spring toward several rounds of cuts, rather than a single, larger-scale effort to oust underperformers all at once, multiple people familiar with the situation told Business Insider.

The Wall Street bank has long been known for its annual head count reduction rituals that play out in the spring and fall, and have historically axed up to several thousand positions at once by trimming the bottom 5% of its worldwide workforce.

But this year, Goldman is skipping its usual spring "Strategic Resource Assessment," or SRA — the internal name for a big, one-time culling — in favor of a series of smaller, rolling cuts, the people said. The first round of layoffs is expected in April, with additional cuts continuing through the summer. The shift is meant to give divisional leaders more control over timing than waiting months for the next firmwide review, one person with direct knowledge said. They added that a more traditional SRA round could still happen later in the year, in keeping with past conventions.

The reductions are set to hit all business lines from its powerhouse investment bank to its expanding asset and wealth management unit, but are expected to be significantly fewer than the cuts last March, whose target of up to 5% could have translated to up to 2,300 jobs. Final names and numbers for the upcoming rounds have yet to be finalized, the people said, declining to be identified discussing nonpublic information.

"Regular, consistent head count management is nothing out of the ordinary for a public company," a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said in a statement. "We are constantly assessing our performance and talent across divisions." The bank said it does not comment on specific head count targets for workforce reduction actions.

Two of the people said the planned cuts are not tied to Goldman's latest iteration of its "One Goldman Sachs" strategy, which it announced in October — a firmwide initiative aimed at integrating its businesses. That initiative is aimed at driving efficiency through AI, including what it called at the time a "limited reduction in roles." In its most recent earnings report recapping 2025 results, Goldman reported full-year revenue of more than $58 billion, up 9% from the prior year.

Other large companies have also announced job cuts this year, including Citi and Amazon, which reduced about 16,000 roles, and software firms like Atlassian and Block.

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