HSBC to Announce 10,000 Job Cuts

Ditto for credit suisse, morgan stan, goldman, and barclays. Hopefully this is not the first of many cuts to come.

It is the first of many cuts to come. Haven't you been reading the news? The 2nd dip started around last April. But don't tell the emdia and the "economists." They have yet to figure it out.

*media*

Bullish!!! Wall street has no impact on Manhattan anyway.

lol at bankers losing jobs

So let's see: In the mass layoffs dept. we have Goldman, Cisco, Lockheed, Borders, and now HSBC.

Looks like the 5,000,000 high paying jobs promised by Obama
are all going to be filled by vultures

Just read on Huff Po that HSBC is cutting 30,000 jobs, not 10,000.

Or maybe Obama considers "high paying" to be $15/hour.

Hey, conservative Republicans took over the House in January.

Where are the jobs?

You realize that jobs aren't created in Congress, right?

You realize that jobs aren't created by the President, right?

Meredith Whitney was just on CNBC and she said that just last month Wall Street announced 50,000 job cuts -- and emphasized that that was just one month and that was just the first pass. She stressed that Wall Street only has 800,000 jobs and there are more cuts to come. It is going to be very interesting to see what July sales figures in Manhattan turn out to be. I'm sure it won't matter so much on the uber-high end. But you have to have a real sense of financial security to close in the last month.

If these Wall Streeters were prudent and living like "normal" people, they really shouldn't worry about losing their jobs.

This is a lesson those in my field learned long ago. When times are great and you're earning $500K, $800K, $1 million, $2 million, or $20 million a year, you BANK as much as you possibly can. It's pretty rare to find a high-paid television writer or producer (maybe not the producers as much as the writers) to be be living *at* their income level, because television executives are more fickle than toddlers; we're keenly aware that our shows can be cancelled at any time, and our next gig might not come for years ... IF it ever comes at all.

Most of my television writer friends (particularly in entertainment) pretty much live like they're making only $100K and sock the rest of it away. This is how television writers can survive without work for years (ok, those residual checks are a HUGE help), but it's not uncommon for someone to work 10 years bouncing among 2 or 3 hit shows, accumulate $5 million in the bank and then essentially retire.

For *normal* people who keep their lifestyles scaled at "upper middle class", $5 million in the bank pretty much means you never have to work (seriously) again. That's the problem, though, with Wall Streeters; they honestly think their 7-figure incomes will continue indefinitely, and they lock themselves into a lifestyle that has them mortgaged to the hilt with 2 or 3 homes, private schools, fancy cars, household staffs, blah blah blah.

People who consistently earn seven (or eight) figures a year for years at a time have absolutely no reason to not have seven-figure bank accounts that can keep them going almost to the end of their lives.

"Hey, conservative Republicans took over the House in January.

Where are the jobs?"

http://whenarethejobs.com/

Meridith is a dummy. She is comparing GLOBAL job cuts to US WS employment.

And don't forget that the FAA is still in partial shutdown thanks to the teabaggers. Thosuands of workers must now work for free or be furloughed.

"Meridith is a dummy. She is comparing GLOBAL job cuts to US WS employment."

jason - I see it differently. I don't know whether she is a dummy or not, but at least on this point these is no doubt that she knows the difference. She said this because she (i) sells hyperbole and (ii) thinks that her audience are dummies and won't understand, not because she doesn't understand. The fact that her hyperbole was repeated breathlessly and uncritically as soon as her talking head stint on CNBC was over shows that she is at least partially correct.

"Meredith Whitney was just on CNBC and she said that just last month Wall Street announced 50,000 job cuts -- and emphasized that that was just one month and that was just the first pass. She stressed that Wall Street only has 800,000 jobs and there are more cuts to come."

OK, so 50k was just one month and just one pass, suggesting that there is more or much more to come. For just a teeny bit of perspective - and apologies in advance for getting all factual here, I know that facts can be inconvenient sometimes - the total decline in US securities industry employment from pre-Lehman peak (June 2008 at 874,500) to trough (March 2010 at 795,600) was 78,900. The largest single month of decline was January 2009, with 15,600. For NYC, the comparable figures are 190,700 peak in August 2008, 159,700 trough in January 2010 and a 7,300 monthly decline in September 2008 (Lehman impact presumably). Since the trough, the national number has risen 10,900 (1.3%) and the NYC number 9,300 (5.8%) through March 2011. See figures here: http://www.sifma.org/research/item.aspx?id=25245

So in order to believe MW's hyperbole, one has to believe that in one unremarkable month (July 2011), "Wall Street" cut a number equal to almost 2/3s of the total peak-to-trough employment decline during the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression and over 3x the largest decline in any one month during that crisis.

Or, alternatively, maybe the shortage on display here is not of Wall Street jobs but of critical thinking skills.

This story is not really about banking. My read is that HSBC has decided capital is better allocated in emerging markets, so they are shedding operations in mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe and investing in the Far East. IBM has been doing this for years.

apt23 wrote: "Meredith Whitney was just on CNBC and she said that just last month Wall Street announced 50,000 job cuts -- and emphasized that that was just one month and that was just the first pass."

SLS gave a good analysis of this above, with some actual facts, thank him. Also, as Jason points out, the oldest trick (mistake) in the book is to assume headline cut numbers all come from NY or the USA.

But, even without that extra information, it should have ocurred to anyone with a grain of sense that something obviously wasn't right with these stats. Taking the quoted stats on their face we are to believe that 1/16 of all wall street jobs got cut in one month. Come on. How about a little thought/perspective before cutting and pasting. Unless the whole idea is to just look for alarming sound bites and regurgitate them whether they make sense or not.

"She said this because she (i) sells hyperbole and (ii) thinks that her audience are dummies and won't understand, not because she doesn't understand. The fact that her hyperbole was repeated breathlessly and uncritically as soon as her talking head stint on CNBC was over shows that she is at least partially correct."

I agree. But my dummy comment also has to do with her Muni default fail.

Good point. That one's not workin' out so well for her.

As I recall Meredith's muni hypothesis was cited with customary unquestioning alacrity by the bear maniacs.

No bankers make millions and they never get fired and hence nyc re only goes up!!!!'

Barclay's announced another 1,600 in cuts over the 1,400 from earlier this year. No idea how much in the NYC or US. But since most of these banks are actually hiring in emerging markets it is unlikely that US and Euro operations will remain unaffected.

"If these Wall Streeters were prudent and living like "normal" people, they really shouldn't worry about losing their jobs."

Matt - I completely agree. The only thing I would caution is that you have to distinguish between all Wall Streeters and the over-the-top-lifestyle / can't-get-by-on-less-than-a-couple-mill-a-year types who get an outsize share of press attention and public awareness precisely because they are excessive and ridiculous (and fun to report on and blather on about on blogs). Perhaps in saying "these" you are in fact making this distinction.

I know a lot more people with year-in, year-out $1mm+ incomes who live on a fraction of what they make and save the rest than I do big spenders who blow it all. Some of the thrifty think about the world the way you and your industry colleagues do - as in, this might not last but if I bank it while I can then I'll be comfortable for a long time if it goes away. For more of them, they just aren't excessive spenders and wouldn't know what to spend it all on if they tried. This is not to say that there aren't people who perfectly fit the spendthrift charicature - I know some and actually work with one - but in my experience they are the minority