Good news: your co-workers are quitting
A somewhat counter-intuitive yet surprisingly accurate workforce metric has made a turn for the positive. People are quitting their jobs.
Roughly 54% of Americans who separated from the jobs in August did so voluntarily, up 11% from a year ago, according to a new report from Challenger, Gray and Christmas. In 2011, an average of 1,941,000 Americans quit their jobs each month. That number spiked to 2,364,000 in August.
A high quit rate is great news for the economy as it almost always correlates with an uptick in the confidence level of workers and the overall health of the job market. People quit jobs in strong economies; they’re terrified to even get up from their desks during recessions.
At least that’s the optimistic way to look at the numbers. On the other side of the coin, an argument can be made that finance workers are simply fed up with their current work situation. After all, companies in all sectors have been leaner harder on a fewer number of employees to do the same amount of work as a once-full office. A recent Harris Interactive poll found that nearly three-quarters of employees would consider a new job if it became available.
Twitter Taking on Bloomberg (eFinancialCareers)
Always looking to gain that edge, traders and hedge fund managers have begun relying on Twitter as a critical component in their decision-making process.
Houlihan Lokey Continues to Add Talent (PR)
The New York firm hired a new director within its Financial Institutions Group and two executives to help manage its chemicals coverage. Houlihan Lokey told us earlier this fall that it has increased its recruiting efforts by as much as 50%.
Bringing My Dog to Work (eFinancialCareers)
As part of the eFinancialCareers bonus expectations survey, we asked an open-ended question of what extra benefits bankers would expect if their variable compensation was scaled back. Some of the answers will surprise you.
As expected, Barclays’ foreign exchange trading desk is struggling after the bank was forced to suspend six traders in response to rate manipulation claims. Barclays has transferred some emerging markets traders over to the FX desk in an attempt to fill the void.
Deutsche Bank co-CEO Jürgen Fitschen has been named as a suspect in the investigation into the bank’s role in the collapse of the Kirch media empire. Fitschen, who is also being investigated for suspicious trading of carbon emissions permits, just had his contract extended for another two years.
Axial Capital Management is closing its doors after more than a decade of success. The once-$1.8 billion hedge fund led by co-founders Marc Andersen and Eliav Assouline lost a bundle on a series of ill-fated short bets.
Start from Scratch (Business Insider)
A managing director at Bank of America responded rather compassionately to a college student who sent in a miserable resume attached to an email riddled with typos. “I’ll pretend you never emailed me.”
Bart Chilton, a commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is stepping down from the Wall Street watchdog.
Buzz Around the Office
Embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has finally admitted to having smoked crack while in office. He has an excuse though: he was drunk.
List of the Day: Interview Prep
Do this before any big interview.
- Read recent news clippings about the company and drop them into conversations.
- Do homework on the people who you are meeting.
- Prep an answer for: “What is your biggest weakness?”
