UBS cutting 5,000 management jobs:report

A traffic sign is seen beside the logo of Swiss bank UBS in front of an office building in Zurich February 9, 2009.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Switzerland's biggest bank UBS plans to cut up to 5,000 senior and management jobs in the next few weeks, Swiss weekly SonntagsZeitung said on Sunday.

It said up to 2,500 management positions could go in UBS's dominant and profitable wealth management division, which accounts for 50,000 of the bank's total 77,000 staff.

A UBS spokesman declined to comment on the report.

Last week UBS said it was restructuring its Swiss business structure into four regions from eight, and trimming its top management. But it said the changes did not mean any more job cuts than the 600-800 positions it already plans to cut in Switzerland as part of thousands of job losses globally.

In February UBS said after announcing a record loss it would cut 2,000 jobs to take staff to about 75,000 by the middle of this year.

UBS is struggling to rebuild its once powerful brand and focus on its core Swiss business after massive investments in risky U.S. assets forced it to make more writedowns than any other European bank and accept government backing.

(Reporting by Jonathan Lynn; Editing by xxx)