Barclays bank swings axe as jobs cull hits 19,000

Scandal-hit Barclays will shrink its investment bank in a radical restructuring that will axe 19,000 jobs across the entire group over the next two years, it said on Thursday. The British lender will this year cut 14,000 positions, or one-tenth of its global workforce, more than an initial plan to remove up to 12,000 jobs in 2014. Some 7,000 investment bank staff will lose their jobs by 2016 -- more than a quarter of employees at the division, whose huge bonuses and vast salaries have fuelled public and shareholder anger. Barclays said in a statement it will also create a "bad" bank for non-core assets with a total value of £115 billion ($195 billion, 140 billion euros) that would be sold or simply allowed to run down. As part of the overhaul, the company will incur £800 million of extra costs, exit its European retail banking business and focus on its Africa-wide and credit card businesses. Chief executive Antony Jenkins has been on a mission to reduce the influence of Barclays' investment bank since replacing Bob Diamond -- the much-maligned former chief executive who was forced to resign after the 2012 Libor rate-fixing scandal, according to AFP.