New banking job in 2024? Hope that someone else leaves
If you couldn't find a new banking job in 2023, then good luck finding a new banking job in 2024. For all the hope that this year would improve the fortunes of financial services jobseekers, and by extension financial services recruiters, 2024 is not starting on a high note.
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«No one can get hiring sign-off, everyone is asking for more cuts and there's not a lot of hiring going on,» says one London capital markets headhunter, speaking off the record. «It's going to be tepid this year,» says the head of one international search firm, surveying the landscape ahead.
The fundamental problem is one of revenues, costs and returns. As Rupak Ghose pointed out in the International Financing Review last week, the return on equity at US banks' investment banking and markets divisions have fallen dramatically from the highs of 2021. At the likes of Morgan Stanley and Citi, division-specific RoE is now well below 10%. At Goldman Sachs, costs climbed to 75% of revenues last year when one-off items are included (or 65% when they're not). The firm is targeting 60%.
The upshot is that, unless revenues rebound fast, banks have more costs to cut. Bank of America's cuts this week are testimony to this. Citi's 15,000 cuts (excludingbusiness exits), highlight the structural issues.
Among some headhunters, the fear is that 2024 could be even quieter than 2023, when the collapse of Credit Suisse and hiring at Jefferies, Deutsche Bank and Santander helped keep things afloat. «It's all about cost management. There's very little underlying demand and people are trying to run with what they've got,» says this London headhunter.
This doesn't mean there will be no hiring at all. As Bank of America
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