By Niket  Nishant and Manya Saini
       Jan 12 (Reuters) - Wells Fargo, Bank of America
 and Citigroup reduced their workforces by a
combined 17,700 last year, the banking giants reported in their
fourth-quarter earnings on Friday.
    As dealmaking dried up and demand from borrowers softened
last year, banks laid off employees or stopped replacing those
who left. 
    JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest lender, bucked
the trend by bolstering its ranks for a third straight year.
    Challenging times for the industry could persist this year
as weakness in commercial real estate and tougher proposed
capital rules could prompt banks to pull back on lending. 
    Wall Street businesses suffered last year as economic
uncertainty weighed on dealmaking. 
    While the S&P 500 banks index rose 7% in 2023, it
underperformed indexes tracking industrial or consumer
discretionary companies. 
    
    CITI OVERHAULS, GOLDMAN STEADIES SHIP
    Citigroup's headcount fell by 1,000 to 239,000 employees in
2023, and the lender outlined plans to cut 20,000 jobs over the
next two years including layoffs from a sweeping reorganization
and other business changes.
    At Bank of America and Wells Fargo the workforce contracted
by about 2% and 5%, respectively, last year.
    JPMorgan added more than 16,200 employees. The bank bought
failed lender First Republic Bank in a rescue deal in May. It
has added jobs every year since 2021.
    Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are set to
disclose their latest headcount next week. As of September end,
they had cut over 4,300 jobs versus last year. 
    Earlier in 2023, Goldman Sachs undertook its biggest round
of layoffs since the global financial crisis of 2008. In
October, the bank's CFO Denis Coleman said they were in a
position to do "selective investments" in headcount.
    
 Bank            Q4 '23   Q3 '23   Q2 '23   Q1 '23   Q4 '22 
 JPMorgan        309,926  308,669  300,066  296,877  293,723
 Bank of         212,985  212,752  215,546  217,059  216,823
 America                                             
 Wells Fargo     225,869  227,363  233,834  235,591  238,698
 Citigroup       239,000  238,000  240,000  240,000  240,000
 Goldman Sachs   -        45,900   44,600   45,400   48,500
 Morgan Stanley  -        80,710   82,006   82,266   82,427
    

    
 (Reporting by Niket Nishant and Manya Saini, editing by Lananh
Nguyen and Nick Zieminski)