Swiss wealth manager UBS Group has reportedly fired more than 150 support staff worldwide in recent months to slash operating costs, Bloomberg has reported.

Citing anonymous sources, the publication reported that employees have been fired at the group’s wealth, asset management and investment banking divisions.

The majority of redundancies were carried out in corporate center positions such as human resources, IT, marketing, and risk departments, the undisclosed sources told the publication.

“As we’ve previously said, we are slowing down hiring and delaying replacements to counter market headwinds,” UBS said in a statement, according to Bloomberg.

“There is no specific headcount or role reduction programme. As any other company, we always have a certain level of attrition,” the statement added.

The Swiss wealth manager’s corporate center employs more than 30,000 people, on whom it spends around one quarter of its wage bill.

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The move is seen as part of UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti’s previously announced plan to slash costs by $300m.

Though he is under pressure from some investors to carry out large-scale layoffs, he is persisting with his plan to achieve the target by slowing hiring and the pace of investments.

This is despite UBS shareholders voting against the performance of board directors and senior management, in a heated annual meeting earlier this month.

Shareholders and activist investors also attempted to block the pay packages of senior management at the Swiss bank

UBS posted a net profit attributable to shareholders of $1.14bn for the first quarter of 2019, a slump of 27% from $1.56bn a year ago.

Last month, PBI reported that Japanese brokerage Nomura is planning to cut jobs as part of a $1bn cost-cutting drive for its wholesale business.

In March this year, reports emerged that US investment bank JPMorgan is also planning to cut hundreds of job in its asset management division.