Wall Street’s Lost Year: Few Jobs, Smaller Bonuses

It’s not a happy time on Wall Street. As third quarter earnings from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs revealed this week, the investment banking business has deteriorated lately, as the deal market remains stagnant. Morgan Stanley reported a 27% drop in investment banking revenue in the third quarter, by far the biggest decline on Wall Street, while Goldman’s advisory business shrank 15%. This isn’t exactly the situation many expected a few months ago.

When Wall Street firms cut thousands of workers earlier this year, many of those laid off saw a silver lining: They would get some time to catch up on life before jumping back into employment when deals made a comeback in the second half of 2023, as was widely forecast. Instead, the resurgence never happened. “For all the talk about green shoots, someone forgot to water them,” Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman said jokingly on a quarterly earnings call yesterday. As a result, many of the laid-off bankers still can’t find jobs.