Observations about pay and hiring at JPMorgan's investment bank

You can see JPMorgan's first quarter results in full here. You can listen to Jamie Dimon talking about the results here.

Or you can read our summary of the notable points below.

1) JPMorgan was adding headcount in Q1

In the first quarter, headcount at the investment bank rose by 180 people, an increase of 0.7%.

2) Hiring has slowed, marginally

In the first quarter of 2010, JPMorgan added 257 people to its investment bank, an increase of 1%.

3) Europe is looking better

JPMorgan's European revenues haven't been looking healthy for a while. This may be changing. EMEA revenues at JPMorgan's investment bank rose 82% last quarter, versus a quarter on quarter increase of 33% across the investment bank as a whole. However, EMEA revenues were down 10% year on year.

4) Compensation looks good compared to 2010, bad compared to 2009

Compensation accrued per head in the first quarter at the investment bank was $124k. This was up 6% on the same period of last year.

However, it was down 8% on the first quarter of 2009, when the average JPMorgan investment banker earned $135k.

6) Unless you work in M&A or DCM, 2011 isn't looking very great

FICC revenues were down 4% year on year. Equity sales and trading revenues were down 4% year on year. ECM revenues were down 8% year on year. M&A revenues were up 41%; DCM revenues were up 33%.

7) Margins are being compressed and compensation costs are contributing to this

Profits at the investment banking fell 4% year on year; revenues fell 1%. The compensation ratio jumped from 35% to 40% over the same period. Hmm.