Morgan Stanley plans on ringing in 2012 on a decidedly sour note.
The white-shoe investment bank plans on doling out pink slips to roughly 1,600 employees in the first three months of next year.
Hundreds of those employees likely will be from the New York metro area, which already has been hammered by a raft of layoffs by Wall Street heavyweight banks.
Morgan Stanley, run by CEO James Gorman, described the cuts as a part of an initiative to “right size” the Manhattan-based global banking franchise, which employs some 62,000 workers in the Americas, Europe, Middle East and Asia.
A spokeswoman declined to provide further details on the layoffs.
People familiar with the moves said that the cuts will occur across the firm but will likely be centered on the bank’s traders and equity and debt sales personnel.
Morgan Stanley and other big banks, including Goldman Sachs, and the investment banking arms of JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America, have been buffeted by a triple witching of a sluggish domestic economy, regulatory reform and persistent worries about Europe’s health.
And New York, the center of the financial world, has been hit the hardest.
Cuts at Morgan Stanley come after Citigroup announced plans to lay off 4,500 workers — more than 400 in New York — and rival Goldman Sachs also has been slashing staff.