华尔街面临新一轮大规模裁员潮

    华尔街的商业模式破产之后，它的用人策略或许也已经不保。

    两年来，华尔街新招了数千位银行家，但不久的将来，可能会砍掉同等数量的职位，甚至更多。据华尔街招聘顾问和猎头们称，仅纽约一地，银行业证券部门就可能裁员近2.1万人。全球的裁员人数会更多。据猎头们称，银行巨头们正在敲定减员计划，裁员可能很快就会启动。

    最新一轮裁员的规模堪比不到四年前的金融危机，当时华尔街裁员2.8万人。但那一轮裁员要算上破产的贝尔斯登（Bear Stearns）和雷曼兄弟（Lehman Brothers），以及自大萧条以来金融市场所遇到的最严重的危机。相比之下，今年股市在上涨，上周银行业刚刚公布了第一季度的财报，情况好于预期。而且，在大公司裁员的同时，很多中小投资银行却在招兵买马。因此，华尔街总体的就业情况可能不会像金融危机后下降得那么严重。

    “招聘还在进行，只是不是大型银行在招人，”华尔街一位顶级猎头、金融猎头公司Whitney Partners的负责人盖瑞•戈登斯坦说。

    虽然如此，招聘顾问们表示，华尔街大公司们发现现有员工人数还是超出了实际需要。上周，波士顿咨询集团（The Boston Consulting Group）发布的报告预测，“短期”内银行业将裁员12%。猎头们称，这些数字听起来和他们从大公司听到的情况差不多。

    “可能这个预测依然偏低，”Odgers Berndtson的资深金融业猎头史蒂夫•波特称。波特说，交易有限，华尔街公司除了要与同行争抢，如今还要与客户竞争。越来越多的大公司开始自聘投行人士，节省华尔街费用，“大幅裁员几乎是肯定的。”

    华尔街公司最大的问题可能是上次裁员没有完全到位。并购活动没有如期回升，导致很多高薪银行家无事可做。新的监管条例显著限制了银行的交易业务。另外，还有债券评级机构穆迪（Moody's）和标准普尔（Standard & Poors）声称可能很快会下调金融公司的债券评级，同样也给银行业带来了压力。美国五大银行估计，评级下调可能需增加220亿美元的成本或抵押品。

    “（银行在）成本方面没有采取足够措施来应对营收下降，”波士顿咨询集团的合伙人、参与最新报告撰写的山迪•钱德拉谢卡尔表示。而且，不像其他轮次的裁员，钱德拉谢卡尔表示，这次丢工作的很多人可能是高级银行家。留下来的人，今年的薪酬也可能下降。总的来说，波士顿咨询集团预计华尔街薪酬支出将减少高达30%。“银行业需要重新考虑，到底是否需要所有这些管理层级。”

    Perhaps the only thing more broken than Wall Street's business model is its staffing strategy.

    After adding thousands bankers in the past two years, financial firms again appear to be on the verge of cutting that many positions and then some. Consultants and Wall Street recruiters say banks could eliminate nearly 21,000 jobs from their securities divisions in New York alone. Worldwide cuts could be even larger. Recruiters say big banks are in the process of finalizing their downsizing plans, and that layoffs could start soon.

    The latest round of job cuts could rival those that happened during the financial crisis. Back then, which was less than four years ago, Wall Street eliminated 28,000 positions. But that round of downsizing included the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and the biggest crisis in the financial markets since the Great Depression. By comparison, the stock market is up this year, and just last week banks reported better than expected earnings for the first quarter. What's more, at the same time large firms are firing, many smaller investment banks have been staffing up. As a result, overall employment on Wall Street might not drop as much as it did after the financial crisis.

    "Hiring is going on, it's just not by the big banks," says a top Wall Street recruiter Gary Goldstein, who runs Whitney Partners.

    Nonetheless, consultants say the big Wall Street firms are coming to the conclusion that they have more workers than they need. Last week, The Boston Consulting Group released a report that predicted banks would eliminate 12% of their workforce in the "short-term." Recruiters say those numbers sound similar to what they are hearing from the large firms.

    "The estimate is possibly low," says veteran financial industry recruiter Steve Potter at Odgers Berndtson. Potter says not only are the firms competing for few deals, but with their clients. More and more large firms are adding investment bankers to their staffs to save on Wall Street fees. "Large layoffs are a virtual certainty."

    Perhaps the biggest problem at the banks is that they didn't cut enough jobs last time around. Mergers and acquisition activity also has not bounced back as expected, leaving a number of high paid bankers idle. What's more, new regulations appear to already be significantly curtailing the banks' trading operations. Also weighing on the banks is the fact that debt watchers Moody's and Standard & Poors say they are likely to soon downgrade the bond ratings of the firms. The nation's five largest banks have estimated that the downgrades could cost them $22 billion in additional costs or collateral requirements.

    "There hasn't been enough action on the cost front to keep up with the revenue short falls," says Chandy Chandrashekhar, a partner at BCG who helped to produce the recent report. And unlike other rounds of layoffs, Chandrashekhar says many of the people who lose their jobs this time around could be senior bankers. For those that remain, compensation is likely to be down this year as well. In all, BCG expects Wall Street compensation expenditures to drop by as much as 30%. "Banks need to revisit whether they need all of their management layers."