Traders fear for their jobs

New York: As anti-Wall Street protests crop up around the nation, many of the bankers and traders at the centre of the storm are focused on a more immediate concern: keeping their jobs. The financial industry shed 8,000 jobs in September, and 10,000 more are expected to be cut by the end of 2012.

JPMorgan Chase posted a 13 per cent drop in revenue last week, and this week mighty Goldman Sachs Group is widely expected to say it lost money for the first time since the financial crisis.

The woes the industry is facing now are in contrast to the success it experienced after the financial crisis — a success that helped stir up the current protests. The anxiety rippling through banks and trading floors has generated some unexpected Wall Street sympathy for the protesters.

Elliott Roman, a trader who works near the demonstrations, said that on his way home, in his suit and tie, he had a friendly exchange with a protester who asked him to join the movement. "Without a doubt they are here preaching to the choir, so to speak," said Roman, a trader at Direct Access Partners.

Panic

"We're feeling it. Volumes are down throughout the industry. Everyone is feeling it."

For others in the neighbourhood, though, the crowds chanting about Wall Street greed have just been an insult to add to their injured state. "The business is hard enough as it is; this isn't something we additionally want to deal with," said Keith Bliss, a senior vice-president at Cuttone & Co.

"The business and econ-omic environment giving fodder to these people — we're also struggling with on Wall Street."

The news of Wall Street's struggles has not drawn much empathy among protesters, many of whom argue that the financial system should shrink. Monica Espinosa, an unemployed administrative assistant from Long Island, responded angrily when a man in a suit and tie approached her in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park and told her that "we're suffering too."

"He suffered in numbers — he lost stocks," said Espinosa, who was carrying a sign that read, "Bankers stop stealing."

"We suffered in reality." Statistics put out by the New York state comptroller last week indicate that securities industry employees make, on average, almost six times more than other workers in the state.

But while some of the casualties of the current retrenchment have been pinstripe-wearing bankers who meet the Wall Street stereotype, the majority have been young college graduates and back-office workers who make up the rank and file of the industry.

Barring a few days of stubble and some cuff links, they could fit in among the protesters packing into the park. "Yes, there are a select few who get paid tonnes, but most people who work on Wall Street, we're just doing our jobs," said Eric Scott, an employee at a trading firm who got into an argument with protesters while passing by during his lunch hour last week.

Layoffs

"We can lose our job and be on the street just like these guys in the blink of an eye." Back in 2007, the financial industry was one of the first to see layoffs during the financial crisis, but it also bounced back sooner and more fully than the rest of the economy.

But this time around, few analysts expect the industry to bounce back in the same way, given the economic climate and new regulations put in place since the crisis. The situation is not causing problems everywhere in the finance industry.