Cetera cuts more jobs as 2025 comes to a close

Cetera Financial Group this week internally announced a second round of 2025 job cuts after reducing its workforce by 5% earlier this year.

The end of the year is typically a time when large organizations like Cetera, with 11,400 financial advisors across a variety of broker-dealers and registered investment advisors, announce layoffs in preparation for next year’s budgets.

It’s not clear how many employees are included in this round of job cuts, with a Cetera spokesperson on Friday morning in an email to InvestmentNews describing the job losses as “a small workforce reduction across Cetera to align resources and streamline operations.”

Cetera has $625 billion in assets under administration.

One industry executive who spoke privately to InvestmentNews about the matter said that marketing, recruiting and cold-callers who target financial advisors working at Avantax were the likely targets.

Cetera two years ago acquired Avantax, a wealth management and broker-dealer firms that specializes in working with tax specialists, accountants and CPAs.

“Those dialers are the sources of financial advisors for the recruiters,” the executive said.

Avantax Investment Services, the broker-dealer based In Dallas, notified FINRA in September it was shutting down, according to its BrokerCheck profile.

Meanwhile, Swiss bank UBS plans to layoff 58 employees in New Jersey as of February next year, according to a report by industry news website CityWire.

A spokesperson for UBS declined to comment.

Business as usual?

Job cuts like those at Cetera and UBS are not unusual in the industry and take place as the routine of business.

“There was minimal impact on field-facing employees and no impact on the regional growth teams that support our financial advisors and institutions,” the Cetera spokesperson wrote. “Cetera remains financially strong, continues to grow, and is focused on supporting our advisors and institutions with the technology, expertise, and service they rely on.”

Cetera Financial Group has recently seen some significant changes that would make job cuts for home office staff seem inevitable.

Cetera has recently been buying large broker-dealers, creating overlap in back office jobs such as technology, compliance and marketing. Owning a handful of large broker-dealers creates overlap in jobs and staff.

For example, in November 2023, Cetera completed its acquisition of Avantax, with close to 3,000 financial advisors who focus on clients' taxes, for $1.2 billion in an all-cash deal.

In August of 2023, Cetera completed its purchase of the wealth business of insurer Securian Financial Group, bringing on board more than 91% of Securian’s advisors and nearly $50 billion in client assets.

Prior to that, in 2021, Cetera acquired the brokerage and advisory assets of Voya Financial Advisors, which had close to 900 advisors and $40 billion in assets at the time.