March 29 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG, Europe's biggest bank by assets, is cutting 23 jobs from its 30-member staff at the New York Stock Exchange, joining a growing list of firms that are relying more on computers instead of floor traders.

UBS, based in Zurich, is trying to find positions within the bank for the 23 people, most of whom hold administrative jobs, said Kris Kagel, a spokesman in New York. Nine of the bank's 16 floor brokers were affected, he said in an interview today.

NYSE Group Inc., which owns the exchange, has introduced automated trading to help it compete with Nasdaq Stock Market Inc. in meeting investor demand for faster electronic transactions. UBS follows Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Bank of America Corp., Credit Suisse Group and Van der Moolen Holding NV in cutting the number of jobs on the stock exchange floor.

``What UBS did is not unique -- what might be unique is the amount of people, but all of the firms have had layoffs,'' said Theodore Weisberg, president of Seaport Securities Corp., who has spent 38 years working on the floor of the exchange. ``It's on everybody's radar screen, especially the big firms.''

Van der Moolen, the fourth-largest market maker at the NYSE, said in January that it would eliminate about 55 jobs, reducing its staff to 135 and saving $4.5 million a year. Bank of America's specialist unit is cutting 100 jobs and Credit Suisse Group, the second-biggest Swiss bank after UBS, reduced its staff at the NYSE by almost a third to 20 people.

`Difficult Decision'

``As the use of electronic trading platforms on the NYSE has increased, we have made the difficult decision to restructure our NYSE floor operations and to reduce our staff presence to bring our personnel in line with current needs,'' UBS's Kagel said.

The NYSE in January automated trading in a final group of stocks included in its Hybrid Market, capping a three-month drive to enable faster trading in 3,627 of its listed securities. About 91 percent of trades were executed automatically in three-tenths of a second after the Hybrid market was introduced, compared with an average of 9 seconds before.

Hybrid automates many of the tasks done by specialists, who pair off buyers and sellers, and also adds trading functions to brokers' handheld computers. The system lifts size and frequency restrictions on automated trading through the NYSE's Direct Plus system. The job cuts are a ``terrible byproduct,'' said Seaport's Weisberg.

`Hard to Understand'

``You try to keep a good attitude but it's hard -- you don't like to see your friends lose their jobs,'' said Weisberg, 67, whose firm employs two brokers and two clerks on the floor. ``Culturally it's not what we're used to. One of the great assets of the trading floor is the people and it's just hard to understand why having fewer people is better.''

UBS's revenue from equities trading last year was second only to New York-based Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's biggest securities firm.

Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman's chairman and chief executive officer, told investors in November that the firm's equities revenue was higher than in 2000 even though the number of people employed in the unit was cut in half.

``We have been very effective in deploying technology and restructuring our equities business,'' Blankfein said in November.

The Wall Street Journal reported the UBS job cuts on its Web site earlier today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 29, 2007 16:56 EDT