[ by Howard Haykin ] Goldman Sachs Group reduced its employee ranks on Thursday - this time cutting several dozen jobs from its U.S. operations.  The firm aims to cut costs amid a slowdown in capital markets activity, according to 3 people familiar with the matter. Office Locations Affected. Job cuts hit the following Goldman locations: headquarters in Lower Manhattan, as well as offices in New Jersey and Salt Lake City. It was unclear whether similar cuts occurred globally, but they affected employees at all levels, two of the sources said.  Goldman Sachs, which employed 32,400 people at the end of March, had cut dozens of jobs earlier this month.  Goldman declined to comment on the matter. 2nd Quarter Ending. Friday, 6/28/12, is the last business day in the second quarter for many Wall Street firms, and there's a general consensus that earnings for the 3 months will be weak - due largely to weak trading volumes and a sharp drop in deal activity. This weak performance most probably will lead to more job cuts - perhaps as much as 5% of firm workforces. This is in line with predictions of analysts and consultants, and would be on top of the thousands of jobs lost in 2011. Goldman is tentatively scheduled to announced its quarterly results on 7/17, at which time the consensus among analysts is that it will to report EPS of $1.70 - an 8% decline from Goldman's EPS of $1.85 one year ago.  It's also down about 50% from the EPS of $3.92 that Goldman's reported in the prior quarter, Q1 of 2012. However, no number are assured, because over the past 30 days, analysts have lowered their Q2 earnings estimates for Goldman Sachs by 32%, and lowered Goldman's full-year estimates by 8%.   [Reuters, via CNBC, 6/28/12]