According to wire reports, Merrill Lynch says it expects Goldman Sachs to cut about 1,000 jobs in an effort to keep its employee growth flat for the year.

Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst Judah Kraushaar says that Goldman had 23,494 staff at the end of the third-quarter, which was 867 more than it began the year with. Goldman has indicated its desire to keep staffing levels flat in 2001, and said he expects job cuts to deal with the excess.

“We would not be surprised to see upwards of a 1,000 person cutback … To be sure, given the dearth of deal flow, we think cuts in investment banking might be somewhat above average on a percentage basis,” said Kraushaar in the research note.

According to the Bloomberg newswire, securities firms have fired about 27,000 already workers this year to cut expenses.

“We continue to recruit” and “to keep our headcount flat, some people have left and some people have been asked to leave,” Peter Rose, a Goldman Sachs spokesman in Asia, told Bloomberg.

Kraushaar suggested that cuts could come across all aspects of the firm.