Goldman Sachs Group will start cutting thousands of jobs across the firm from Wednesday, two sources familiar with the move said, as it prepares for a tough economic environment, Reuters reported.

Just over 3,000 employees will be let go, one of the sources said, but the final number is yet to be determined. That scale of layoffs would be the largest since the 2008 financial crisis, one of the sources said.

Goldman had 49,100 employees at the end of the third quarter, after adding significant numbers of staff during the coronavirus pandemic.

The layoffs are likely to affect most of the bank's major divisions, one of the sources said. 

Wall Street banks have suffered a major slowdown in corporate dealmaking activity as a result of volatile global financial markets.

Hundreds of jobs are also likely to be reduced from Goldman Sachs' consumer business, Marcus, the sources said.

The Wall Street giant typically trims about 1% to 5% of employees each year. 

Global banks, including Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc, have reduced their workforces in recent months as a dealmaking boom on Wall Street fizzled out due to high interest rates, tensions between the United States and China, the war between Russia and Ukraine, and soaring inflation.

Global investment banking fees nearly halved in 2022, with $77 billion earned by the banks, down from $132.3 billion one year earlier, Dealogic data showed.