By Neil Patrick
Whilst some would have us believe it, not everyone working in the financial sector is a villain. To condemn a whole group for the misdemeanors of a few is naive and simplistic. The people who work in the financial centers around the world are a very diverse group. They include lawyers, analysts, compliance managers, IT specialists, HR and training people, accountants.
They compete to get and keep their jobs just like everyone else. They face demanding challenges at work just like everyone else. In fact the challenges they face are much more stressful than many. When large sums of money are directly involved, it’s a certainty that you will be under a lot of pressure to perform. Consequently, a good number of them are actually completely burned out by the time they are in their mid-thirties.
And much of the money that they earn is spent in businesses where they live, like food, services, retail, residential and cars. The money earned in financial businesses plays a big part in providing work for others - and is a big contribution to the city’s tax revenues.
Today, like many others, these people are seeing their jobs and prospects significantly downscaled. The savage cuts in headcounts in the wake of the 2008 collapse have left financial centers with their expensive offices much emptier than they were six years ago. And the remaining staff with a lot more work to do.
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Moreover, jobs lost after the financial crisis are being replaced in the city at less than half the rate of the rest of the country. Two decades ago, New York was home to 30% of all such jobs.
The securities industry has recovered just 54% of the jobs lost nationwide after the 2008 financial crisis, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But Wall Street has recouped only 23%. The workforce has been hollowed out - 167,000 employed at securities firms, down from 191,000 in 2008.
“The numbers say there are a lot of Wall Street jobs that don’t need to be in New York,” Barbara Byrne Denham, an economist who tracks the local business scene, told Crain’s New York Business. “That has all sorts of implications for the city’s tax revenues.”
Facing regulatory changes and with the advent of new trading technologies, the banks that long ago transferred lower-level personnel out of New York have started moving up the corporate ladder to put higher-paid people - such as investment bankers, analysts and financial advisers - in places like Tampa, Jacksonville and Salt Lake City.
So no-one is immune to the fallout from the collapse including the people who were closest to it. Perhaps it’s not altogether unlike what the military call ‘friendly fire’?
Some parts of this post were taken from an original article here:
At some point people who pay taxes realize they're been bled to death. And take action.
ReplyDeleteThe question I think David is what action should people take? There are plenty of (ir)resposnible agencies that are culpable not just FS folk. Regulators, auditors, lawyers and government bodies have played a big part too...
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