The answer to almost every corporation’s woes is the hack and slash the workforce. Just choppity chop chop away…one hundred workers, one thousand workers, whatever is needed to pump up the stock price.

There was a time in the 1990s when companies were trying to out do eachother with the size of their “announced” layoffs. Sometimes the actual number was never reached, but hey, it made Wall Street happy.

Let the hacking continue. Citigroup announced yesterday it was cutting 17,000 jobs. 17,000 jobs! That’s enough people to fill a small town.

But I’m scratching my head over statements by Citigroup executives about the cutbacks:

This from an AP story:

The elimination of the jobs won’t reduce the bank’s work force, but merely slow its growth, Citi executives said.

(Citi’s chief operating officer, Robert Druskin) told a conference call with Wall Street analysts they should expect Citi’s headcount to grow this year because of acquisitions and plans to open new branches, especially overseas.

So are they cutting or not? And if they are, what were these 17,000 people doing anyway? Will they be missed? Thousands of people weren’t sitting around just picking their noses. They did something critical, right?

If I were a customer of Citigroup I would wonder big time.