Germany’s Deutsche Bank has started making the first of the 18,000 job cuts they previously announced.

The job cuts will primarily affect those working in the bank’s share trading business.

Deutsche Bank staff in Tokyo, New York, and London were told that their jobs will be ending. Some staffers in London stayed home after receiving the news that their passes would no longer be valid after 11:00 AM local time. The German bank has yet to get into the specific details of the job cuts, but the cuts are meant to remove excess while the bank focuses on other areas.

Deutsche Bank has been going through some serious difficulties recently. The bank has already announced that it plans to cut 74,000 jobs from its global workforce by 2022. This plan comes as part of a massive reorganization effort that will see them also spend about USD $8.3 billion over the same time period. “We have decided to focus our resources on businesses where clients need us most…” one spokesperson told the BBC.

The shakeup that resulted in these cuts stems from a failed merger with Deutsche Bank rival Commerzbank. The would-be merger fell through in April, following years of decline at Deutsche Bank’s investment bank and generally poor performance as of late.

Deutsche Bank’s equities business in Asia is based in Hong Kong, but the cuts will affect staff around Asia. As for the bank’s business in the UK, Deutsche Bank is one of the largest employers in London, with almost 8000 employees. “It’s not an easy market right now. People aren’t falling over themselves to hire more traders,” one reportedly gloomy-looking former employee told the BBC.