Saturday, July 10, 2010

Help Wanted: Apply on Wall Street

While much of the country remains fixated on the bleak employment picture, hiring is beginning to pick up in the place that led the economy into recession — Wall Street.

The shift underscores the remarkable recovery of the biggest banks and brokerage firms since Washington rescued them in the fall of 2008, and follows the huge rebound in profits for members of the New York Stock Exchange, which totaled $61.4 billion in 2009, the most ever. Since employment bottomed out in February, New York securities firms have added nearly 2,000 jobs, a trend that is also playing out nationwide at financial companies, commodity contract traders and investment firms.
Read the rest here.

2 comments:

123 said...

We saw hiring begin to turn around in Spring 2009 and it has simply picked up pace since then.

I have heard it said that the markets turn around about 6 months or so ahead of the economy, and Wall Street as an industry is more directly tied to the markets than the economy. Of course, hiring is always a lagging indicator well behind both the markets and the economy, so...

Visibilium said...

Orr, correct. The market bottom in March 2009 predated the GDP bottom in 3Q09. Right on schedule, despite the moronic predictions about "this time it's different".

Why would anyone be surprised that the Fed's gigantic liquidity pump would generate employment in trading? Time to rock 'n roll.