US securities firms still heavily overstaffed.

Financial News, July, 2002

Byline: William Wright

Securities firms in the US will have to fire thousands more staff this year to bring their headcount into line with the collapse in market activity, according to figures from the Securities Industry Association (SIA).The SIA provisional monthly employment figures show that the US securities industry employs 730,000 staff. While this is sharply down from its annual peak of 783,000 at the end of 2000, it is still 14,000 ahead of levels in 1999, and 66,000 ahead of the 664,000 in the industry in 1998. That was the last year when activity and revenues were comparable to current levels in the business.

Investment banks cut their headcount sharply last year to deal with the downturn in capital markets activity, but volumes this year...

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