It's only January 14th, but the news out of Barclays Plc is not good.  On Wednesay, the bank said it would cut 2,100 jobs in its retail, commercial banking and credit card businesses.  On Tuesday, it was announced the bank would cut 2,100 positions at its investment banking division (Barclays Capital), at its wealth management business, and at its fund management operation.

All told, the total number of planned job cuts at Barclays stands at 4,600 - including 400 IT positions cut in Britain last week.

The cuts come shortly after the $1.75 billion acquisition of a part of Lehman Brothers - a deal that Barclays President Robert Diamond Jr. hopes will vault the bank into the upper tier of global universal banks.  Last fall, Barclays Capital in the U.S. absorbed 10,000 employees with the acquisition from Lehman Brothers;  3,000 jobs were subsequently cut.  The cuts, which weren't a surprise, represent about 3% of the bank's global work force of 156,000 at the end of October.

In the wake of Citigroup's expected dismantling, the aggressive push by Barclays to become a diversified investment bank puts it in a small group that includes Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and, to a lesser extent, HSBC.

"We will take all possible measures to mitigate compulsory redundancies through redeployment, using natural attrition, releasing of contractors, closing vacancies and opening voluntary redundancy registers."  -- Barclays statement on Wednesday.

    The Hit to Barclays Capital.  Barclays Capital, will absorb 1,300 of the 2,100 job losses;  wealth management will lose 500 positions;  and, Barclays Global Investors will lose 300.  Most of the layoffs are in areas hardest hit by the market slowdown - fixed income and all areas related to the structuring and securitization of investment products.

Once high-flying banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and UBS have taken a sharp knife to their investment banking divisions. With the outlook glum, analysts expect the trend to continue.

Apparently everyone who was told yesterday that their services were no longer necessary – a week or so ahead of bonus announcements - will be receiving no bonus for the work they did in 2010.  "Quite the parting gift."   [Dealbreaker, 1/13, and others]