Deutsche Bank pauses job cuts to give employees more certainty during virus outbreak

(Reuters) - German lender Deutsche Bank AG <DBKGn.DE> is pausing future job cuts to give employees additional certainty during the coronavirus outbreak, a company spokesman said on Thursday.

"We have decided to defer new communications of individual restructuring actions to potentially affected employees. The pause will be in place until we see a return to greater stability in the world around us", the spokesman said in an emailed statement.

Deutsche Bank will continue restructuring talks and will not replace most of its voluntary leavers, according to the statement.

The pause in the company's future job cuts was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

The lender is for the first time also considering asking its German staffers to cut their hours and take government money instead as it tries to navigate the coronavirus crisis.

Sources told Reuters earlier on Thursday that U.S. banks Morgan Stanley <MS.N> and Citigroup Inc <C.N> had also paused layoffs as the coronavirus pandemic has led to a record level of unemployment claims and unprecedented economic uncertainty.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney)