The latest survey by compensation consultant Johnson Associates predicts that financial services pay will be slashed by 15 percent to 20 percent in 2020 — a vast improvement from the 30 percent cuts the same survey predicted in mid-May.
“We’ve dug halfway out of the hole,” the report’s author, Alan Johnson, told The Post. “But that said, after a pandemic and the social unrest, it’s going to be an emotion-filled end of the year.”
Adding to the year-end drama, Johnson said, will be an uptick in pink slips, as Wall Street looks to cut costs in the aftermath of the pandemic, which is expected to lead to a decline in business for retail and investment bankers thanks to rising loan defaults and a frozen M&A landscape.
Johnson’s report also predicts that the Black Lives Matter movement could have real impact on year-end pay considerations, with executive compensation and pay ratios being looked at through a new diversity lens as financial firms reckon with racial inequities within their own walls.
“This is not a year to be tone deaf,” Johnson said.
New York Post / June 23, 2020