Wall Street Pay Rises 20%!

Lol, I'll take a gander.....

These are non bonus base salaries. Like minimum wage going up 20% for cocktail waitresses.

This is for pay in the 1st quarter of 2010, in other words based on the rebounding market (off of a low) and probably also based a lot on performance in 2009, more precisely the 2nd half of 2009.

2010 so far looks much worse. see the Wall Street bonus thread.

Plus, it comes at the wrong time. It is old news that salaries are way up, while political mood is way down, and it appeared in the NYT. This article only means a little more political to make policy to pressure Wall Street salaries down at a time when the market is already doing some of that work.

I missed the non-bonus part. Ok, so these 20% increases were probably to make up for the fact that bonuses were going to be down (Citi?) and/or taxed.

BUSINESS NEWS

Bonuses By The Numbers - What We Know So Far
last updated: 22 October 2010

Here's what we know about staff compensation provisions in the first 9 months of 2010, after Credit Suisse, Goldman, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley have released their Q3 earnings.

Credit Suisse Investment Bank

Investment banking pay down 20% from Jan - Sept 09

Revenues - $13.2bn

Provision for Compensation - $6.4bn

Comp / Revenue ratio - 49%

Employees - 21,200

2010 Average Comp per Employee - $304,277

Goldman Sachs

Pay down 30% on 2009 so far

Revenues - $30.5bn

Provision for Compensation - $13.1bn

Comp / Revenue ratio - 43%

Employees - 35,400

2010 Average Comp per Employee - $370,706

JPMorgan Investment Bank

Pay down 31% on 2009 so far

Revenues - $20bn

Provision for Compensation - $7.88bn

Comp / Revenue ratio - 39%

Employees - 26,373

2010 Average Comp per Employee - $298,866

Morgan Stanley

Investment banking pay down 8% on 2009 so far

Revenues - $23.8bn

Provision for Compensation - $12bn

Comp / Revenue ratio - 50%

Total Employees - 62,894

2010 Average Comp per Employee - $190,681

Source - Bloomberg

hee hee

Article says the data includes bonuses.

Author Floyd Norris has to know this data is stale. Was he just being a snarky wiseass?

It's the NY Times dude...it's the National Enquirer, but less serious.

Floyd Norris does not like what Wall Street is/has become. He isn't alone either.

The story also says WS employment is down. Higher bonuses for those left. Not
Higher in total.

"The story also says WS employment is down"

Which is also dated information since firms hired significantly throughout the first half of the year.

And subsequent data confirms the same downward trend

For example:

[from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304023804575566353602302296.html?KEYWORDS=wall+street+employment+new+york]

OCTOBER 21, 2010, 3:24 P.M. ET

Investment Bank, Securities Dealing Job Count Sinks Again

By BRETT PHILBIN

NEW YORK—The number of professionals in the investment banking and securities dealing sector plunged by more than one-fifth in both New York City and New York state in September from a year earlier in a sign of the tough times experienced by Wall Street firms.

The state of New York reported 485,000 professionals in finance and insurance, down 1% from 490,000 a year ago, according to data from the New York State Department of Labor. Employment on Wall Street, which is classified under the securities, commodities contracts and other financial investments and related activities category in New York City, dropped to 160,200, off 1.7% from a year earlier.

While the financial-activities category, which the Labor Department groups with real estate, didn't come close to reaching the 33,000 job losses in the government sector, those who work in investment banking and securities are feeling the pain of a slowdown in client activity and trading that began late last spring.

Headcount for the investment banking and securities dealing sector fell 23% in New York City to 32,300 and dropped 25% to 33,500 in New York State.

The securities brokerage category, which includes financial advisers, again experienced declines, falling 17% in the state and 15% in the city.

The number of employees in the investment banking and securities dealing sector in the city has fallen at least 20% from the year-earlier period for eight straight months, while the securities brokerage sector has reported at least 10% fewer employees since December 2007.

In overall employment trends, New York state shed 15,600 private-sector jobs in September, or 0.2%, while the nonfarm job count fell by 37,000. The state's unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.3%, on a seasonally adjusted basis.

People love to say NYC is different. In some ways it really is. If someone got laid off in NYC and doesn't have the wealth/savings to stay, they have to move elsewhere, and so they won't show up in the unemployment statistics even if the amount of jobs went down.

Well throw a ton of money at banking and some of it is bound to spill over into Manhattan Real Estate. Big reason why Manhattan Real Estate market should fare better than most of the country. Plus we do have some foreign demand and demand from Long Island , Connecticut and Wealthy New Jerseyians looking to down-size.

If you plan on shorting real estate, best picking a different part of the country to do it in.

"If someone got laid off in NYC and doesn't have the wealth/savings to stay, they have to move elsewhere, and so they won't show up in the unemployment statistics even if the amount of jobs went down."

Interesting hypothesis. I've seen a couple cases of that, not sure if its an overall trend.