IB's Severance Policy

In the wake of JPM’s layoffs yesterday and with the likelihood of more to come, I am curious if any of you would mind sharing your companies’ severance package policies. No need to name the actual firm, but I’m just looking for some perspective. Especially interested to hear from folks who have recently been “reduced”. I’ve been told that appx. 60% of the people in my ~100 person bus. unit will be laid off in the coming weeks and am not sure if I’ll be getting a good deal or not. Not that I get to negotiate. Currently I am expecting a 60 day “notice period” after which I no longer need to come to work (standard for everyone), followed by a 4 weeks paid severance given my 2.5yrs of service. I have no idea if I should hope for any sort of pro-rated bonus in addition to this, but suffice it to say, bonuses have traditionally amounted to 50% of my base and we’re nearing the half year mark. (that being said, we have NOT been profitable so far this year). Thanks for your input.

My roommate got laid off yesterday from JPM. Two months severance I believe.

AFAIK, there tends to not be a set policy. As times get worse and cuts get into their 2nd, 3rd, 28th round, the packages get smaller and smaller. Or at least that seems to be the trend.

I almost don’t understand the purpose of large severance packages. I know people who are getting 3 months who were laid off. I mean, the marginal savings when all is said and done could be not particularly great, especially if things turn around. And heck, what if those being laid off spent 3 months out recruiting for new work rather than getting paid for doing nothing? My severance package was only decent, but I know that my boss will now have to take over many of my duties instead of out recruting for new work–literally, the marginal savings for 2008 is like $22,000 for fiscal 2008 and just 2 new jobs (or half a day at a conference) would have gotten that money back in new business. I just don’t understand the management thinking behind this (poor managment is probably how these firms got into these situations in the first place).

I work at an ibank, although not ib, people in my dept got 12 weeks, for working there less than 2 years.

kkent - Because if people didn’t get a nice severance package, they’d burn the office tower down and lynch the CEO. Maybe companies are fearful of employees stealing clients and trade secrets if they are given time to sit around and justify their existence. Or, they are just being sheeple and following their competitor’s actions. Or, they feel the have to appease Wall Street by taking action. Why don’t companies give employees a bigger shot across the bow? Nothing will get you hustling at work (or on your resume) hearing from management that your job isn’t safe. If people leave, fine, it’s what you wanted in the first place. For the people that stay, they might actually get the business pointed in the right direction again. Eventually the business environment will rebound and all these same companies will be scrambling for talent. Basically, they will have accomplished nothing more through the cycle than shuffling the deck with their workforce and people’s livelihoods.

XSellSide Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Eventually the business environment will rebound > and all these same companies will be scrambling > for talent. Basically, they will have accomplished > nothing more through the cycle than shuffling the > deck with their workforce and people’s > livelihoods. Yep, and they’ll spend months trying to re-train people as well. I definitely see economic benefit in laying people off, but in industries with such wild cycles, like you, I see this as just shuffling the deck–it seems to me to be a very expensive, time consuming way of saving a few bucks.