NEW WALL STREET STATUS SYMBOL: STEADY JOB By SHEILA MULLAN February 17, 2008 – Forget the big bonus, access to the corporate jet and oceans of pricey champagne at dinner, for many bond and equity traders the new status symbol on Wall Street is a steady job. With more than 150,000 financial sector job cuts announced in 2007 and thousands more expected this year, out-of-work traders and salesmen - who had worked on high-profit, exotic debt instruments, like CDOs and CMBSs, among other areas, before getting pink-slipped - are now lowering their sights and accepting much more pedestrian positions in compliance or risk management in order to pay the bills. “I know people who thought they would be able to find another job in a senior or management position, and did not,” said one trader, who is watching the ranks of bond traders contract. “Some were out six months, one year or two years.” Banks and brokers, burned by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, are drastically cutting back their collateralized debt business. Many of the job cuts announced recently are in this area. And while these humbled and idled traders will not need a telethon anytime soon - having taken home a total compensation package as high as $450,000 - the $200,000 a year, non-management jobs they are accepting means a whopping pay cut of up to 50 percent. “Risk management is not something I had really considered,” said one 40-year old, Ivy League-educated trader, who, recently laid off, is weighing going after a job in risk management. With bills to pay and few prospects on bond-trading desks, he decided to take the less glamorous job. “Given the current Wall Street environment, it’s to your benefit to be creative and as flexible as possible.” “The business has so changed, that I will have to find an allied field,” said a 57-year old bond salesman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “My goal would be to take my experience and apply it to something else. I had hoped to spend another three to four years doing this, but the vagaries of the market did not work out that way.” “There is a new caste system,” said one still-employed bond trader, who has seen roughly 100 friends laid off. “The new status symbol is a steady job - it’s better than none. Do whatever you got to do, to pay the bills.” “The layoffs really accelerated in the last two weeks,” said Rita Kohn, vice president at Dawn Taylor Associates, a New York job placement firm. Employment consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas said the layoffs announced last year were a record high. Nearly overwhelmed with job seekers, Kohn said she has never seen so many people with senior level experience willing to take lower-level jobs just to stay in the game. It’s gotten to the point, Kohn noted last week while sifting through the many risk management and compliance jobs she needs to fill, that firms are getting leery hiring these over-qualified people. “They are wondering if they will be a good fit for their firm.”
damn …this means that for with limited experience its gonna be a really really rough …