Barclays bank swings axe as jobs cull hits 19,000

London: 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 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 (USD 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.