According to the Wall Street Journal job cuts on Wall Street are nothing new. The industry is well known for its sponge-like quality, absorbing bankers when times are flush, squeezing them from the ranks when the business cycle slows. Hire, fire, repeat.
As a banker, one could play the game. Make a fortune—or at least a tidy sum—during a few years of employment, get laid off, hang out at a boutique shop for the resume and ride the next wave of hiring.
But the most recent rounds of cuts—5% or more at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., 400 to 600 employees at Credit Suisse Group Inc. and a combined 700 jobs at Barclays PLC since the start of the year—could snap the trend.
Those jobs might not come back for a long time. Goldman is even shipping some jobs to Asia. In addition, more layoffs are coming. It is only a matter of time. It is hard to believe that Bank of America Corp. will be able to sustain its 288,000-employee work force given that $8.5 billion settlement stemming from mortgage securities. Morgan Stanley famously hired droves of traders in the aftermath of the financial crisis in an effort to keep pace with rivals. That strategy has backfired badly as fixed-income trading tailed off…..
Find out more at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303763404576416633997222852.html?mod=WSJ_Markets_LEFTTopNews
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