Goldman Sachs will struggle to maintain its compensation this year

It won't seem sufficient to readers of the Daily Mail, but compensation at Goldman Sachs is falling, and will probably fall even more before the end of the year.

Thanks to a reasonably disastrous set of results, made worse by the bonus tax, the SEC settlement and a truly calamitous quarter in equities trading (revenues down 89% year on year and 84% quarter on quarter), pay prospects at Goldman Sachs are starting to look a little peaky.

Revenues have tumbled and Goldman has cut its compensation ratio (to 43%). As a result, the average Goldman man/woman will take home $273k for the first half, 25% less than last year.

This is important, because Goldman historically does most of its accruing in the first six months of the year. Unless things improve significantly, it seems highly probable that the final pay figure for 2010 will be far lower still.