Wall Street Back to Its Old Ways

As there are some small signs of recovery in the financial crisis, the large Wall Street financial firms are beginning to get back to their normal practice of dishing out huge pay packages. According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, analysts estimate for this year, Goldman Sachs will pay out as much as $20 billion, or about $700,000 per employee. This would be almost double the firm’s $363,000 average last year. Similarly, Morgan Stanley is estimated to pay out between $11 billion and $14 billion in compensation and benefits this year. This range will be about $340,000 per employee, similar to the paid out in Morgan Stanley’s fiscal 2007. One recruiter that fills jobs for Wall Street firms believes that the current “euphoria about bonuses is based on the expectation that the business is returning to normal and that we will be in a robust environment again.”