Goldman Sachs is following Citigroup's lead in taking an axe to 5 per cent of its staff, leaving 1,500 people out of a job.

The US investment bank, which has emerged unscathed from large sub-prime writedowns disclosed by rivals, said cuts to its 30,500 strong workforce were part of an annual performance review that it conducts among its staff.

In contrast, Citigroup, which last week reported a $9.83 billion fourth-quarter loss after taking an $18 billion charge on sub-prime-linked assets, announced that it is cutting 4,500 staff from the bank.

Goldman Sachs, which last year made a $4 billion profits from betting on the sub-prime market, is expected to outline the cross-departmental job cuts in March.

The planned reductions emerged as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) postponed its update on the health of the world economy after recent stock market volatility and this week's emergency rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.

Société Générale's catastrophic €5 billion (£3.7 billion) rogue trader scandal is also understood to have halted the update which was scheduled to be released at 4pm today, but has been postponed until next week.

A spokesman for the IMF said yesterday: "Over the last three weeks there has been quite a lot of developments both in the market and in policy and we are trying to make sure that we incorporate all these developments into our revised figures."

The IMF avoided predicting a US recession, but said it expected slow growth there. "We still see a period of below-potential growth as the most likely scenario for the US, given the economy’s good starting position," said the IMF's spokesman.

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