The Financial Post reports in its Friday, Jan. 27, edition that some of Canada's top investment banks plan to maintain staffing levels to meet client expectations for the same level of coverage through the ups and downs of business cycles. A Reuters dispatch to the Post reports that the U.S. investment banks, including Goldman Sachs Group, began cutting over 3,000 employees on Jan. 11 citing a challenging macroeconomic environment, raising fears Canadian banks may follow suit. Like their global peers, many Canadian investment banks had staffed up during the pandemic only to see deal making slow last year. At Royal Bank of Canada, for instance, head count at its capital markets division jumped by 71 per cent over the two years ending Oct. 31, 2022, to 6,887 employees. However, in the meantime Canadian deal-making fell 39.7 per cent last year to $89.7-billion (U.S.). That is more than the 36-per-cent drop in global deal values to $3.8-trillion (U.S.) following a stellar 2021. Yet, Canadian banks have not announced layoffs and some even say they may increase head count, though deal-making in the new year is down nearly 50 per cent to $3.2-billion (U.S.) from a year ago.