<\/p>\n\n\n\n
KEY POINTS<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Less than six months ago, Wall Street bankers were reaping the rewards<\/a> from a historic boom in mergers and IPOs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, thanks to a confluence of factors that have cast a pall over markets and caused most deal categories to plunge this year, broad-based job cuts loom for the first time since 2019, according to industry sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The turnaround illustrates the feast-or-famine nature of Wall Street advisory work. Firms were caught understaffed when central banks unleashed trillions of dollars in support for markets at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. The ensuing surge in capital markets activity such as public listings led to a bull market for Wall Street talent, from 22-year-old college graduates to richly compensated rainmakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the first time in years, bank employees seemed to gain the upper hand. They pushed back against return-to-office mandates. They received record bonuses<\/a>, multiple rounds of raises, protected time away from work and even Peloton bicycles<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s over, according to those who place bankers and traders at Wall Street firms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can\u2019t see a situation where banks don\u2019t do RIFs in the second half of the year,\u201d David McCormack<\/a>, head of recruitment firm DMC Partners, said in a phone interview. The word \u201cRIF\u201d is industry jargon meaning a \u201creduction in force,\u201d or layoffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The industry is limping into the traditionally slower summer months, squeezed by steep declines in financial assets, uncertainty caused by the Ukraine war and central banks\u2019 moves to combat inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n IPO volumes have dropped a staggering 91% in the U.S. from a year earlier, according to Dealogic data<\/a>. Companies are unwilling or unable to issue stock or bonds, leading to steep declines in equity and debt capital markets revenues, especially in high yield, where volumes have fallen 75%. They\u2019re also less likely to make acquisitions, leading to a 30% drop in deals volume so far this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wall Street\u2019s top executives have acknowledged the slowdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last month, JPMorgan Chase<\/a> President Daniel Pinto said bankers face a \u201cvery, very challenging environment\u201d and that their fees were headed for a 45% second-quarter decline. His boss, CEO Jamie Dimon, warned investors this month that an economic \u201churricane<\/a>\u201d was on its way, saying that the bank was bracing itself for volatile markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wall Street layoffs likely ahead as two-year hiring boom turns to bust KEY POINTS Broad-based job cuts loom at major banks for the first time since 2019, thanks to a confluence of factors that have cast a pall over markets and caused most deal categories to plunge this year, industry sources said.The math is ominous: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2514,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions\/2514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liferep.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>\u2018Very challenging\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n