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发帖数: 32 | 1 Earlier this fall, Steve Ferdman celebrated getting a job offer Credit
Suisse in the usual Wall Street fashion. Over expensive oysters and dark rum
cocktails at a trendy Manhattan restaurant with his parents, he toasted
landing the full-time position after working six months as a consultant
without benefits.
A week later, Mr. Ferdman, 28, sat alone at the same place and ordered a gin
and tonic to lament getting laid off by the bank, for the second time since
2008. When he told the bartender about his misfortune, his next round was
on the house.
“I did everything right. I came into work every day, I put in long hours,
and I still got punched in the face,” Mr. Ferdman said. “People shouldn’t
want to work in this industry anymore.”
Being young on Wall Street once meant having it all: style, smarts and too
much money to spend wisely. Now, twenty-somethings in the finance industry
are losing both cash and cachet.
Three years after the global financial crisis nearly brought Wall Street
firms to the brink, the nation’s largest banks are again struggling. As
profits wane, layoffs have claimed thousands of jobs and those still
employed have watched their compensation shrink. These problems are set
against the morale-crushing backdrop of the Occupy Wall Street movement,
which has made a villain of a once-lionized industry.
Much of the burden of Wall Street’s latest retrenchment has fallen on young
financiers. The number of investment bank and brokerage firm employees
between the ages 20 and 34 fell by 25 percent from the third quarter of 2008
to the same period of 2011, a loss of 110,000 jobs from layoffs, attrition
and voluntary departures.
By comparison, industry headcount dropped by 17 percent in the same period,
according to an analysis by The New York Times of data for New York City
provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of staff members over
the age of 55 decreased by only 11 percent.
Young financiers have experienced setbacks in the past. Bankers and traders
who rushed wide-eyed to Wall Street in the halcyon days of the 1980s were
waylaid by the stock market crash of Oct. 19, 1987, known as Black Monday.
Then they got pummeled in 2000 by the dot-com collapse and the recession
that followed.
But experts say that today’s doldrums, unlike previous downturns, are here
to stay.
“A lot of the positions that are being cut right now aren’t coming back,”
said Leslie K. Hild, a vice president with the recruiting firm Right
Management. “It’s an emotional roller coaster for almost everyone.”
The industry’s woes have also affected the plans of undergraduate and
graduate students at the nation’s top colleges.
At Harvard Business School, where a relatively high 39 percent of this year
’s graduates went into finance, compared to 34 percent last year, there has
been a “heck of a lot more anxiety” about next year’s hiring season,
according to William A. Sahlman, a professor of business administration.
“People used to think of some of these organizations, like a Morgan Stanley
[MS 13.56 -0.04 (-0.29%) ] or a Goldman Sachs [GS 89.58 -1.72 (
-1.88%) ], as safe career bets,” Professor Sahlman said. “Those firms
are not going away, but they’re going to hire half the people they hired
before.”
Several large firms are not recruiting new entry-level analysts for their
investment banking divisions this fall, having filled their entire incoming
class with last summer’s interns. At the University of Pennsylvania, whose
Wharton School is the closest thing that exists to a Wall Street farm team,
Goldman Sachs canceled its informational session.
The mood is even darker outside the Ivy League. Matthew Slotnick, a senior
economics major at Boston College, said that he had sent more than 100 ré
sumés to contacts on Wall Street and received several interviews. But he
has not gotten any offers. Mr. Slotnick, who has wanted to work at an
investment bank since entering college, is now applying to smaller banks and
firms outside of New York.
“People are saying it’s sort of a 2007, 2008-type hiring climate,” he
said. “I haven’t given up, but it’s a bit depressing.”
Any sympathy for Wall Street’s huddled masses yearning to get rich should
be tempered by the fact that financial sector recessions often deal a soft
blow. Laid-off financial workers typically get large severance packages,
including the use of outplacement services. During their job hunt, many can
draw on substantial savings built off past bonuses, on top of collecting
unemployment.
But for those laid-off Wall Street workers whose golden tickets have
vanished, the disillusionment is real.
Sam Meek, 27, who was laid off in September when his Connecticut hedge fund
decided to downsize, used to spend $500 on charity dinners and lavish golf
outings. Now, it’s home-cooked meals and beer on the sofa. Recently, Mr.
Meek and his roommate, another unemployed banker who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because he did not want to jeopardize his job search, sat
together in the kitchen filing for unemployment and drinking a bottle of
Champagne.
“I’m scraping by right now,” he said.
Mr. Meek, a former Marine, says he is pursuing several job options,
including an opportunity to help develop a social network for the military.
But he remains reluctant to commit to a new company.
“I’m doing full due diligence,” he said.
Older financiers are having problems, too. Ian C. Horowitz, 40, a former
equity researcher at Rafferty Capital Markets, was laid off in June when his
firm decided to outsource its research division. Mr. Horowitz currently
collects $400 a week in unemployment benefits and has been mowing lawns and
doing odd jobs around his New Jersey town to support his wife and two
children.
Mr. Horowitz, who lived through the downturn of 2001, said that the latest
cuts felt different.
“There have been economic moments where things were bad, but you knew the
pendulum would swing the other direction,” he said. “This is structural.
The playing field has changed.”
Wall Street’s social scene has also changed, thanks to Occupy Wall Street
and the fear of reproach from industry outsiders. Today’s young bankers no
longer brag about their jobs, especially in public. One twenty-something
Goldman Sachs employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he
was not allowed to speak on the record, said he now told new acquaintances
he worked at a consulting firm.
The mood has darkened so much that even the young Wall Street workers who
still have prestigious jobs are considering letting go of the brass ring.
“It’s lost its luster,” said a former Goldman analyst who left the
financial sector this year. The former analyst, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because he signed a confidentiality agreement with the firm,
said that in addition to losing some of the monetary benefits of their jobs,
his friends who remained in finance were suffering from peer envy. “The
new status jobs aren’t at Goldman Sachs. They’re at Google [GOOG 581.70
0.76 (+0.13%) ], Apple [AAPL 376.62 7.61 (+2.06%) ] and Facebook
.”
For many of the high-achieving, type-A young professionals who end up on
Wall Street, being tossed around by an industry in tumult can amount to the
first real failure of their lives. Even if the industry recovers, some may
not stick around long enough to see their fortunes improve.
“I’m still scratching my head,” said a former employee of Nomura, the
large Japanese bank, who was laid off on Oct. 1. “I went to the right
schools, I know the right people and I’m very good at what I do. But when
you have to cut costs, you have to cut costs.”
The ex-Nomura employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because a
confidentiality clause is attached to her severance package, said she had
recently come across a group of Occupy Wall Street protesters in Lower
Manhattan. While she said she did not support all their ideals, she could
now sympathize with their frustrations about high unemployment and a growing
sense of economic hopelessness.
“I’m in the same boat as these guys,” she said of the protesters. “I
just want to start working.” | e*****a
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