Morgan Stanley will start firing people in the next few weeks because they aren’t making as many deals.

The Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) is likely to start a new round of layoffs around the world in the next few weeks, according to three people with knowledge of the plan. The firm’s deal-making business has been hurt by rising inflation and a slowing economy, which have made it harder to make deals.

Two of the sources said that in the Asia-Pacific region, the bank has made a list of employees who are no longer needed. Most of the people on the list work on China-related business. All of them didn’t want to be named because the information is private.

Some of the cuts will come from the capital markets teams in Hong Kong and mainland China, and most of the rest are likely to come from other teams, both onshore and offshore, that focus on doing business in China.

One of the sources said that the cuts will also affect the bank’s 30-person or larger technology investment banking team in the Asia-Pacific region.

Three sources said that the cuts in Asia-Pacific will be bigger than the bank’s annual staff losses due to natural attrition in the region. They also said that a final decision on the size of the cuts has not yet been made.

They also said that cuts would be made around the world at about the same time.

A fourth source said that the bank hasn’t decided how many people will lose their jobs or when. They also said that layoffs aren’t coming soon. This person said that any cuts would affect a small number of people around the world.

A company filing says that Morgan Stanley had 81,567 employees around the world at the end of the third quarter. The company declined to comment for the story.

Some investment banks are getting ready to lay off people because they aren’t getting as many deals and loans.

Reuters reported that Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) cut jobs in September. This was the first time this happened in two years because of the pandemic. Last month, Deutsche Bank (ETR:DBKGn) also cut staff in its investment banking unit’s origination and advisory departments.

Morgan Stanley wants to cut its staff in Asia because China’s strict COVID-19 rules are hurting its economy. This has hurt capital markets and merger and acquisition (M&A) activity.

Refinitiv data shows that so far in 2022, Hong Kong has listed companies worth $10.77 billion, which is the lowest amount since 2017. This is compared to $37.7 billion at the same time last year.

In the first nine months of this year, the value of M&A deals involving China fell by 35% year over year to $266 billion, the lowest level since 2013, according to data from Refinitiv. However, China is still Asia’s biggest export market.

Last month, Morgan Stanley said that its profit for the third quarter dropped 30%, which was less than what analysts had expected. This was because a slowdown in global dealmaking hurt its investment bank business. It made it sound like there might be some plans to cut costs.

Chairman and CEO James Gorman said on a conference call last month, “We’re looking at headcount,” but he didn’t give any more details.

“You have to think about how fast we’ve grown in the last few years, and COVID has taught us some things about how to work more efficiently.”

Gorman is currently in Hong Kong for a high-profile financial summit that aims to reopen the city to international investors after almost three years of strict COVID restrictions.

At a panel discussion on Wednesday, he said that high inflation was the biggest problem the world was facing right now.

Refinitiv data shows that Morgan Stanley has dropped four spots and is now 14th in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) in terms of investment banking fees. So far this year, the company has made $329 million and has 1.4% of the market.