I was looking at the layoff trends in banking over
the weekend, and it’s pretty hairy.
2007 set a record number of 153,000 US jobs lost
in finance, three times the average numbers for the years before according to
figures from Challenger Gray, the outplacement firm.
If 2007 was a record, 2008 may be worse with the
figures reported already over 110,000 for this year:
2008 2007
2006 2005
January
15,789
4,030 3,348 11,220
February
6,267 5,332
6,896 3,166
March
4,663 7,070
2,671 3,413
April
23,106 33,789
2,338 3,756
May
16,206
4,804
7,196 1,817
June
19,227 9,800
7,292 868
July
15,517
2,181 1,939 12,998
August
2,182
35,752
1,666 2,118
September 8,244
27,169 1,557
2,119
October
10,515 5,624
1,763
November
6,953 2,516 3,881
December
5,710
7,284 3,354
TOTAL
111,201 153,105
50,327 50,473
From Challenger Gray report, October 2008.
And that was before the bailout bomb. With
Lehmans, Merrill Lynch, WaMu, Wachovia and the rest all happening in September,
expect Q4 numbers to add another 50,000 or more to those 2008 numbers.
As a result, some young wag in New Yawk posed as a
failed banker begging on the Wall Streets ...
Very amusing-not.
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...