Grim Reaper of Jobs Stalks the Street - Layoffs as High as 20% Are Predicted (Wall Street)

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

March 11, 2008

The banker résumés are streaming into Wall Street recruiting company Options Group. On average, 100 are arriving each day. Three of them will lead to jobs.

While Wall Street’s chief executive officers talk calmly about “normal attrition,” the people in the trenches know the score. Big, painful firings are coming their way. Lehman Brothers Holdings cut 5% of its employees yesterday. That’s just the start. Many privately say industry layoffs will be worse than in the 2001-2002 down cycle. Others are already invoking the bloodlettings of the early 1990s.

The irony is that the process reinforces the cycles the Street is trying to prevent. An investment banker fearful of being fired in a downturn will furiously harvest cash when times are good. That creates dangerous incentives along the way, as bankers focus on short-term profits, neglecting long-term risks.

Meantime, the industry is going to eat itself. Top Wall Street executives foresee layoffs of as high as 20% for Wall Street, which employs about 210,000 in New York state alone. If layoffs are that severe, job rolls would plunge to mid-’90s levels. “I’ve never seen so many résumés come to me at any time in my life,” adds Options CEO Michael Karp.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120519564156525807.html

[kaydee457 13]

Cyclical......I once worked on Wall Street for a brokerage firm Thompson&McKinnen......They're used to this on WS...

[mawilson 2,133]

I can see a lot of VJers all broken up about the loss of Wall Street jobs.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

[Imua 0]

Sorry, but not a lot of sympathy here - try living anywhere in NYC on $40-50K (for a so-called 'professional' job requiring a master's degree) and then come crying to me. Just one of their bonuses probably equals what I would make in 10-20 years...

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

[Pinocchio Liberal 268]

I can see a lot of VJers all broken up about the loss of Wall Street jobs.

Those rich bastages deserve everything they get

[mawilson 2,133]

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

Why would that be smart?

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Well, job losses on Wall Street can often precede job losses on Main Street. I see economic pain ahead.

[Jenn! 918]

phew, thank goodness I don't work on Main Street either!

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Sorry, but not a lot of sympathy here - try living anywhere in NYC on $40-50K (for a so-called 'professional' job requiring a master's degree) and then come crying to me.

$40-50K? They were paying entry level CS undergrads more than that when I graduated.

I suspect you're referring to education. My wife is a teacher too. Working on her masters and getting paid peanuts. It's only worth it if you get enrolled in the state pension and get tenure. Otherwise, it's a waste of talent.

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

Why would that be smart?

Is it ever a bad financial move to live below your means?

[mawilson 2,133]

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

Why would that be smart?

Is it ever a bad financial move to live below your means?

Perhaps not, but what's the point of making $500k a year if you're not going to use it?

[peejay 327]

Back in the late 1970's / early 1980's I worked at an engineering company as a piping designer / draftsman. It is a very cyclitic business. Lots of boom or bust. Feast or famine. That was one reason I got out of it.

I remember the last big layoff we had that nailed me in the eary 1980's. I dreaded Friday afternoon after lunch. That was when the shoe dropped. The lead designer would come by and gather up the victims one by one to get their pink slip from the project manager. I went through that for months before they nailed me. By then our design department went from 400+ designers to less than 100. It was painful.

It took me months to get another job and it was not at another design position. There were little to no design positions to be had for years after the crunch. I got a job as a roustabout on an offshore petroleum production platform on the Gulf of Mexico. It was the only decent paying job I could find at the time. I never went back to design. I traded the office for the sea and have stayed employed in the upstream sector of the energy industry for 25 years. Not to say that I haven't switched companies. Oil companies come and go all the time. Some of them I used to work for don't even exist anymore.

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

Why would that be smart?

Is it ever a bad financial move to live below your means?

Perhaps not, but what's the point of making $500k a year if you're not going to use it?

Maybe, but what's the point of having a big wedge if you only fritter it away on #######.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

If they were smart they would live like they were making $40K and bank the rest, then they would be prepared, but then they would look like 'losers' to their peers.

Why would that be smart?

Is it ever a bad financial move to live below your means?

Perhaps not, but what's the point of making $500k a year if you're not going to use it?

The suggestion being made is more around when you use it, not whether you use it.

[mawilson 2,133]

Maybe, but what's the point of having a big wedge if you only fritter it away on #######.

Living the good life while you're still young is not #######.

Living like ####### and having a nice savings account is worse....some day you will wake up and realise that you have "frittered away" the best years of your life in squalor.