NEW YORK - Calling it a "jobless" recovery is now only half-true on Wall Street, where healthy profits and a slowly improving economy have inspired a nascent turnaround in hiring, experts said.
Banks and brokerages are once again bringing in executive search firms to help them shore up areas where they laid off too many staffers in recent years after markets slumped and firms found themselves loaded with pricey staffers with little to do.
Media, health-care and derivatives bankers, in particular, are increasingly finding work with companies that need advice to take advantage of changes in federal regulations, growing prospects in biotechnology, and consolidating industries.
Strengthening stock markets also have securities firms predicting more initial public offerings down the road.
"Some firms are hungry enough and see enough visibility in the near-term for their business that they need people now," said Gary Goldstein, president and chief executive officer of executive search firm Whitney Group.
Several firms with big securities operations roughly doubled their profit in the quarter ended in August, including Bear Stearns Cos., Lehman Bros. Holdings Inc., and Morgan Stanley.
In the lucrative and quickly growing credit and equity derivatives sales and marketing arena, salaries have reached 1999-2000 levels, with top traders earning as much as $3 million a year after seeing their pay shrink to nearly half that in the last two years.
Bonuses - which at $48,500 per person for the average Wall Streeter in 2002 were less than half the 2000 payouts - should also rise this year.
"It's clear that bonuses are going to be up this year, probably 20 percent from 2002, but not near 2001, let alone 2000," said Alan Johnson, an executive compensation consultant.
In New York City, industry employment edged up to 164,400 in August from 161,600 in May. It peaked at 200,300 in December 2000.
Yet those who were laid off in the last purges of 2002 and this year may be out of luck, because, generally speaking, Wall Street wants to raid competitors for their top fee-gathering staff, not bankers, traders or underwriters who were laid off, Goldstein said.
Lehman has been offering employees up to $10,000 if they help lure top talent away from a competitor to the investment bank. Other banks, like UBS, have similar programs in place.
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