Wall Street jobs fall to lowest levels since 1993

I bet this includes back-office and support staff positions which wall street has been automating and moving first to Jersey city and elswhere for years. Downturn just accelerated an already occuring process.

so...its not really bad because it was happening anyway?

lots of controlling jobs that went overseas and arent coming back.

I guess one could blame Y2K
Wall Street and the banks saw that thei Indian subcontractors did a good job for less money and after the Y2K problem, well they had the relationships and gave them more work.

because, after all, the only fun thing to do is find something, someone, anyone to blame. and then bash, bash, bash.

Well if it is just back-office jobs then this isn't a problem for the region is it? After all those people only make $20-30,000/year and don't support any part of the owner occupied market... Oh wait, don't secretaries, trainers, recruiters and programmers for IB's make close to if not more than $100k and share in the bonus pool? Not to mention the event planners, tech support, archivists, legal, etc.

Average income in NYC is south of $50,000. Taking out a bunch of people making $70,000-$200,000 can't be bringing it up.

And if any of them was a spouse of someone making 100-200k then that is another $1 million apartment that won't be sold.

Sorry, fewer high paying jobs can't be spun as a positive.

AvUWS,

Have you ever taken the PATH train or the "Goldman ferry"? There are ways to allow New Yorkers to commute to NJ. You really need to get into the WTC Path station in the morning to experience what a "crowded" train station really means. People can still live in NY and work in NJ.

Vic - sorry, what does that have to do with what I said?

You said "Well if it is just back-office jobs then this isn't a problem for the region is it? After all those people only make $20-30,000/year and don't support any part of the owner occupied market... Oh wait, don't secretaries, trainers, recruiters and programmers for IB's make close to if not more than $100k and share in the bonus pool? Not to mention the event planners, tech support, archivists, legal, etc." My point was that these people can still be an OWNER to occupy NY real estates. Just learn to commute and become a commuter.

back-office jobs have declined for decades for many reasons. one simple reason was the emergence of book entry securities.

Also when you have four super-large banks instead of 10 big ones, there are economies of scale which show up in support staff numbers.

columbiacounty, you're slipping. It's been 10 minutes and 7 minutes since Riversider posted and your grey and shriveled presence has not yet appeared to spew empty and pointless criticism of everything he said. If you're going to stalk, at least do it right dude.

so when does stalking become trolling. I'm so confused sideline.

Not sure

But.. but...
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/21342-wall-street-hiring-increases-most-since-2008

Both are correct. There was a ton of hiring in a short time span, traders,bankers and sales coverage, but the over-all numbers are down. I think most of the new hires have been higher pay positions, which is again odd because there's been some movement of the highest paid talent to move to and /or set up hedge funds.

Stupid and misleading article.

The vast majority of these cut jobs have clearly been on the lower end shipped off (to Jersey City and cyberspace) as the wealth pool in NYC hasn't ever been as large than it is now.

Just like technology sector is at record lows when it comes to jobs and the back office low-rent work has been shipped off to Asia.

Especially compared to the 80s and 90s, when the city was a dump.

It's 2010, please get with the times.

Ridiculous article.

Can any one explain what exactly is a back office person and what are his or her responsibilities? Thanks

He's responsible for leading the vanguard in the migration of banking to India, paving the way for the rest of the industry to move there, one level at a time, until it's all relocated.

Trades processing, securities settlement, statements, etc

So these are pretty much lower paying jobs right? Can't be making high six figures producing statements and confirms.

Years ago some of these people woule eventually get noticed, befriend the right people and get promoted to a trading role, But that was a long time ago. Even when Liar's Poker was written, that era wsa already ending.

Back office people do on average make more than the NYC average, yes.

Some ten times as much or more. After all investor relations, the CMO, CFO, and legal are all back-office too.

And this story is on the NYC metro area (including NJ), not just NYC.

Basically, back office is anyone who isn't a trader, banker, or sales associate (I'm including private client in that).... and in that are a lot of folks who are highly paid on any scale except for the goldman-type ones. Definitely tons in the six figure range, and a good amount mid six figures.

Not to mention the fact that IB's and traders are getting axed too. It was a poster who claimed this wasn't a story since it was probably all back office people who were getting the ax.

For example:
Fidelity
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/08/layoffs-watch-fidelity-capital-employee-looking-out-for-his-pals/
Cowen
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/08/unfounded-rumor-of-the-afternoon-cuts-at-cowen/
JPM
http://dealbreaker.com/2010/08/jpmorgan-wasnt-just-kidding-when-it-told-traders-to-leave-building-not-come-back/

Barclays also cut headcount by 7%.

The layoffs are smaller and not all get attention, but the big guys at these firms are not going to let their bonuses shrink because they have to share it with (now "redundant") the working stiffs lower down.

"Basically, back office is anyone who isn't a trader, banker, or sales associate (I'm including private client in that)"

Epic fail. Front-office in EVERY type of company, including pharma, etc, is CUSTOMER FACING in a (potenially) revenue-generating capacity. So at the banks this includes the assistants and trainees to the "trader, banker, or sales associate" types, ALWAYS. It even includes research people, especially on the buy-side, and CERTAINLY it would include a PCS broker of ANY type, whether s/he answers the 1-800 number for small fry Merrill Lynch accounts, is an ordinary Morgan Stanley Smith Barney storefront broker, a high-net worth Goldman VP, or an MD at JPM's private bank. These people are DEFINITELY "front office."

This is tough on the back office and trainees. Generally though on Wall Steet there continues to be strong opportunity meaning that those who are responsible for revenue and clients are doing well. For Wall Street as an economic engine, I remain bullish. For Wall Street as an engine of local job growth, less so for the shorter term.

I'm less bullish on Wall Street and the banks than I was during the summer. It's looking more and more like the banks will have to deal with declining NIM and overcapacity in some of their market sectors. The super-profitable shops make their money from high frequency trading and I'm not that sure this will continue.

I should say that some people will speak about "middle office" and include investor relations, marketing, equity research, and other less pure back office functions there.

But they come before back-back office in the cullings fo show.

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=al4CMbZHCmhc&pos=3

Volume of trading is declining and there just aren't enough fees in M&A to make up for it. This does not bode well that the banks couldn't make their numbers even before the changes of FinReg go into effect.

If you subtract out HFT (and computers trading with other computers), it's even worse.

Depending on the role, back office finance jobs can pay $250,000 a year... or more.

^^^A lot more, trust me.

Is there new news here?

Here's some more raw meat for the Chicken Little contingent:

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=abteMLSfG.AE
Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Securities firms around the world will cut as many as 80,000 jobs in the next 18 months as revenue growth begins to slow, said Meredith Whitney, the former Oppenheimer & Co. analyst who now runs her own firm...

Jason, let's hear some specifics. Roles and salaries.

Head of IR for a publicly traded 1-bank, hedge fund, or PE firm. $250k-1MM total, all in. Its not the size, its the profits per employee plus the total size that matter. The #2 or 3 at bulge bracket (and there would be like 3 #3s) would get $250-300k all in. PR/corp comm generally 25% less at all levels. Chief counsel well over $1mm, their #2, 3, & 4 mid six-figures. Treasurer, Controller, etc, also mid-six. CTO/CIO, same or higher if they do a lot of high speed trading (can be over $1MM). Research marketing, product marketing, coporate access - high five to low six figures for analysts up to mid six figures for VPs and high six low sevens for MDs.

i could go on but I won't. I have to actually work today.

You consider IR as back office?

If 'support' or some other term is more politically correct, feel free to use that instead of 'back office'. The distinction is between revenue generating and not.

Is this real? Since 1993?

job - see 1993 and June 2010 in the NYC column of the table at the end of the pdf in this link.
http://www.sifma.org/uploadedFiles/Research/ResearchReports/2010/SecuritiesIndustry_Employment_20100810_SIFMA.pdf

For a few reasons why the article linked in the OP is technically accurate but actually nonsense, see this thread.
http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/22551-get-ready-for-a-really-really-small-wall-street

"You consider IR as back office? "

Its either "back" or as some firms say "middle office", along with research and e-commerce. Back or middle. Not front. If you have just two catagories, its back office, yes sir. You have $0.00 in P&L.

Wall Street firms must slash pay and headcount and shed almost a third of their trading-business assets to earn even half the returns they once made, according to Sanford C. Bernstein analysts.

So-called risk-weighted assets at U.S. banks have to shrink 33 percent and European lenders must slice 28 percent, Bernstein analysts led by Brad Hintz and Chirantan Barua wrote in a note to clients today. The firms also must cut their compensation ratio to 40 percent of revenue from 50 percent by firing high- paid managing directors and replacing some traders with computers, they wrote.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-15/ubs-retreat-foreshadows-wall-street-cuts-bernstein-says.html

but...who's fault is this?

Dont forget the the new IT jobs from Cornell, etc New York is the new Silicon Valley.

I am a front office guy at a big investment bank. Lots of dumb posts in this thread.

Front office is client facing - bankers, traders, sales people, and research.

Back office are things like compliance, IT, etc. There is ONE head of investor relations at each bulge bracket bank. Working in the CFO's office of a 70,000 employee firm is not even remotely related to average salaries of back office types. The salary of the VP of IR at a bulge bracket bank is completely irrelevant to this discussion. We're talking armies of people being laid off, and you're citing the salary of a one-off, highly specialized position? The VP of IR does not get axed during cost cuts.

What is definitely meaningful is that one in five bankers will receive zero bonus this year (front office types). Layoffs continue across the board and yes, most definitely huge cuts across the street for front and back office. Literally every week is another round of layoffs. Profits are way down. Trading volumes are down. Deals are not happening. Thus banks are laying off thousands. Average pay is down across the board

Spin that into a positive.

I wasn't on SE when this 2010 thread got started, but... Jason, those figures you're posting are for people who are pretty high up. For every head/manager/VP, there are a dozen working stiffs. How much are those people getting paid in these layoff-prone times?

I do back office work (account management) for a big securities firm in Tokyo. Nobody here makes six figures, or even close. We pay new grads well ($40-45k) but that rises slowly, with non-titled employees aged up to about 45 earning $50-60k.

My boss, who's been on the job for 25 years, gets about $90,000, and even that number is a little high because the yen is so strong (Y7,000,000; at PPP this is more like $50-60k).

Given that Tokyo is the world's most expensive city for consumer goods, I had been pre-supposing a pay cut when I finally move back to NY. Am I off-base? Is it realistic to hope to earn $100k or more doing back-office work in NYC even when under age 40? (In age-based-hierarchy Japan, this would never happen.)

There are dozens of IR people at the big banks. 1 head of corporate, yes. But s/he has 6-10 people worki g for him/her. And may e two more fixed income IROs. Then the investment Managment side of the firm has IR staff for the funds. The more funds, the more IR staff. Then the public PE shops , hedge funcs, and traditional asset mgrs for similar reasons have 10+ IR people each. And the private ones almost all have one or more. It's not a rare job.

...Not to mention the IR staff for the ADR business, advising all those foreign issuers.

Triple: if one has a family to support on 50-60k in metropolitan Tokyo, how far out do they have to live?

For example, this is the IR team for CS corporate. There are another 15 or so at the private bank and asset management doing that sort of IR.

https://www.credit-suisse.com/investors/en/contacts_investor.jsp

Its funny how someone who actually does IR for a living knows more about the topic than a banker.

"Triple: if one has a family to support on 50-60k in metropolitan Tokyo, how far out do they have to live?"

Not far at all; the insane-RE-prices thing hasn't been true for a decade, and gets less true with each passing year. I own, but renting a condo like the one we live in would cost about $1300 per month -- and this is right in the center of the city, in a very desirable neighborhood. And property taxes are a pittance if your building is old -- about $75 a quarter for me.

Back in the '80s you'd hear stories of exhausted "salaryman" fathers commuting two hours each way into the middle of the city; those days are long gone.

Then again, even New Yorkers might find 400-500 square feet cramped, since rolling up the futons to turn the bedroom into a living room isn't done. Here it, and those sizes, are standard.

000. U mean u can have 20yrs of negative real real estate prices after a massive credit induced real estate bubble and a society can function. WOW!

So in 20yrs Jason and the hordes of other bankers, re borkers and mortgage bankers will still make $80k/yr but their housing will only be 1/5 of its current cost!!!! That's fantastic. As long as you didn't buy nyc re in 2004 -2015 induced by 3% 30yr mortgage noose. Hilarious.

Btw, some salarymen in Japan still commute 2hrs a day. Yep, they bought at peak and in Japan, they'd rather eat ramen and wear prada shoes and keep feeding that pig of a mortgage.

@W67 - Regarding "they bought at peak and in Japan, they'd rather eat ramen and wear prada shoes and keep feeding that pig of a mortgage", mortgages in Japan are typically recourse loans, so they don't have much of a choice! I have little sympathy for that generation, though; they made insane salaries that few people born after 1970 will ever get a chance at.

It sure would be interesting if NY, and the US more generally, followed Japan's path. The "no-inflation, 5% unemployment, reasonable RE" part is great; the "old people have all the money and ruthlessly bleed the younger generation dry financially and socially" part, which includes an upcoming doubling of national sales tax with the money going to elderly pensions, isn't so great. Fortunately the US Boomers had more than two kids per couple so the kids (today's adults) will be able to outvote any truly egregious nation-destroying, Boomer-centric policies.

Keep voting for Democrats who vilify Wall Street and want to raise taxes on everyone. That's the solution. Not like these companies can move their jobs elsewhere, right? Right?

"Not like these companies can move their jobs elsewhere, right? Right"

To where? Basel 3 is a global accord. MiFD and EMIR are happening EU-wide, and the APAC nations are imposing similar rules. There is no where to hide.

"Keep voting for Democrats who vilify Wall Street and want to raise taxes on everyone"

Yes, better to vote for the Republicans, who are actually the ones increasing spending (yes, they've been lying for decades, their record is worse) and running up deficits... all while making sure the lives of women, gays, minorities, people who like science, people who like freedom of religion get worse.

Oh, and we pretending Republicans have a record of preserving good jobs, too? Nice job on that financial crisis...