The most confident bankers in the world are in France. Or at Goldman Sachs
The 1,700 people who responded to our bonus expectations survey are pretty sure that their bonuses are going to go up at the end of the year - pretty bigly, too.
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That doesn't mean they're all particularly confident in their job security, however - although there was pretty some significant variation across the board.
Putting aside employees at SocGen (where many employees are protected by extremely worker-friendly labor laws), the least insecure bankers in the world are at Goldman Sachs. After cutting headcount in 2023, Goldman has been hiring again in 2024. In the third quarter of this year, it added 2,100 new faces.
The most insecure employees in the market are at Standard Chartered, followed by some distance by those at UBS and HSBC. All are cutting staff. UBS has pledged to get rid of 40,000 people (around a third of its headcount) after its merger with Credit Suisse. HSBC and Standard Chartered are, unsurprisingly, both cutting headcount too.
Not all insecurity is related to individual performance. One Morgan Stanley risk VP, based in New York, said that he felt insecure in his role and had “lost trust” in his employer, as well as management. He did expect his team to grow, however, on account of “hiring cheaper staff.”
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