Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) will cut about 3,200 positions starting this week, reversing course after four years of expansion, as a weak economy and slower dealmaking may have cut annual profit by half last year.

The cuts, amounting to about 7% of its total employees, are coming largely from its banking and trading divisions after the firm boosted its workforce by more than a third over the past four years to 49,000. Goldman mostly paused its yearly cull of underperforming employees earlier in the pandemic.

They also arrive just days before Goldman's annual year-end bonus discussions. Compensation acros🐬s the company is exp🅠ected to fall as the bank works to reduce overall expenses. Firms across Wall Street have suffered along with declining asset prices and lower merger activity in the past year, and analysts say profit dropped by about half last year even as its trading units drove $48 billion of revenue.

Goldman's cuts surpass those of rivals. Morgan Stanley (MS) and Citigroup Inc. (C) are among a growing list of financial firms that have announced large-scale layoffs in recent weeks. Goldman last announced big cuts in September.