Midcareer workers squeezed off

[marmar]

When it comes to firing, Wall Street no longer sticks to a last-in, first-out system. It doesn't go with first-in, first-out either.

Rather, since investment banks and brokerages started shrinking in 2008, middle-aged, mid-career workers have born an inordinate share of layoffs and cuts by attrition, according to federal data, recruiters and economists.

"They're expensive and relatively expendable," said Dan Ryan, a partner in charge of the banking practice at executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles in New York.

From the second quarter of 2008 to the second quarter of 2011, almost half of workers aged 35 to 54 at U.S. investment banks and brokerages vanished, some 113,000 individuals, according to a FINS.com analysis of data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.fins.com/Finance/Articles/SBB0001424053111903918104576500753234709950/Mid-Career-Workers-Squeezed-Off-the-Street?link=FINS_hp&Type=0

[Habibi]

1. I sympathize.

However, those folks certainly made enough to save for a rainy day.

[yourout]

2. Hell...they helped bring the rain.

[Habibi]

3. True.

Okay, so I don't sympathize so much. :)

[Lochloosa]

6. As a "middle-aged, mid-career worker" with an unemployed wife

5 boys, two of which now live at home because they were unemployed, I'll just refrain from commenting.

[Odin2005]

4. Gen-Xers get screwed over, how typical.

[saras]

5. Its a good article if you care how Wall Street works beyond what they do to us...

"Ryan, at Heidrick & Struggles, said banks have held onto their oldest, most senior workers for their client relationships and knowledge of economic cycles. And firms have been less aggressive in cutting young, junior employees because they work particularly hard and are relatively cheap. Middle-aged workers are stuck in a vulnerable spot in between..."

"They're not pruning here, they're lobbing off," Zandi said. " And they're not worried about productivity. They are going to be looking at 'What is this person costing me?'"...

"Sometimes firms just need to make the math work," she said. "They can get rid of one mid-level hire as opposed to getting rid of five or three more junior people."

"clients are asking to see young candidates with two to six years of experience. Many hedge funds are reluctant to hire mid-career workers, because they have grown used to a different system of valuing investments and making decisions, Edis said. They prefer to train promising young workers from scratch."

[LatteLibertine]

7. "They're expensive and relatively expendable,"

Pretty much their attitude about all of us.