(March 23) – “Charles Schwab Corp., predicting a protracted stock-market slump, Thursday announced sweeping layoffs that far exceed cutbacks at rival securities firms,” writes Andrew Fraser for WSJ.com, today.

“The nation’s largest online brokerage firm said it will slash its work force by as much as 13%, mostly through layoffs, and warned that first-quarter operating profit will be about one-third of already lowered analysts’ expectations as investors continue to pullback from Wall Street.

“Trading volume at the San Francisco firm last month fell 15% from January levels and 32% from February 2000. Average trades per account have fallen by more than 50% in the past year, and margin debt has fallen by more than 40% in the same period.

“With no end in sight to the market’s downdraft, Schwab said it will cut 2,750 to 3,400 full-time jobs — 11% to 13% of its work force — by year end to keep its profit margins from slipping further.

“The cuts underscore Schwab’s pessimism about the economy and the stock market. The “excessive exuberance” that had pushed stock trading to its peak last spring has now been supplanted by a “recessionary” atmosphere, said Charles R. Schwab, the company’s chairman and co-chief executive.

“’We expect this period to go on at least a year, probably more, before [investors’] confidence levels come back,’ Mr. Schwab said in a conference call. Schwab had doubled its work force to 26,000 in recent years as business soared on Wall Street.

“Schwab’s cutbacks are the biggest to hit Wall Street in response to the market pullback. Other recent cutbacks, 5,000 jobs at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced last fall of and 2,500 jobs at the Credit Suisse First Boston unit of Credit Suisse Group, were aimed at eliminating merger-related overlaps of similar positions.

“Many of the largest Wall Street firms, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Merrill Lynch & Co., and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co., have cut jobs quietly, without noisy announcement of mass firings. That’s because they don’t want to alarm top employees who might be poached by other firms that are still hiring, and because they don’t want to lose ground to rivals if the markets rebound.