massive layoffs

34,000 wall street jobs gone in the past 9 monthes… ouch. 100,000 possible??? Highlights(lowlights?) from article by Yalman Onaran (bloomberg) March 24 (Bloomberg) – Wall Street banks hit by mortgage losses and writedowns have cut more than 34,000 jobs in the past nine months, the most since the dot-com boom fizzled in 2001. This crisis is much worse than 2001 and we don't know how long it's going to last,'' said Jo Bennett, a partner at executive search firm Battalia Winston International in New York. Job cuts could be more than 100,000 in a few years.’’ Firm Positions Cut Citigroup 6,200 Lehman Brothers 4,990 Bank of America 3,650 Morgan Stanley 2,940 Washington Mutual 2,600 to return to headlines. EquityR E A D 97 to view all attachments. Wall Street Firms Cut 34,000 Jobs, Most Since 2001 Dot-Com Bust Page 8/10 Merrill Lynch 2,220 HSBC 1,650 Bear Stearns 1,550 WestLB 1,530 UBS 1,500 Goldman Sachs 1,500* National City 900 Credit Suisse 820 Royal Bank of Canada 500 Fortis 500 Wells Fargo 500 Wachovia 443 Deutsche Bank 370 JPMorgan Chase 100 _____ TOTAL 34,463

I love the Goldman Sachs one with the asterisk. We are letting go 1,500 but we are doing so because they are the underperformers (not because we are expecting tough times in the near future like everyone else is admitting). Great way to keep the stock a float by spinning cost-cutting measures into positive news. If the only reason for letting these workers go is due to underperformance, we should expect to see goldman hiring 1,500 in the very near future.

An Example of “Good News - Bad News” Classification malpractices