The financial services industry in New York might have to suffer Zohran Mamdani and his high-earner taxes in a few weeks, but there are two things that can comfort them before that: firstly, their bonuses should be better than usual. Secondly, a bunch of them will get fired before the new tax comes in.
So say October figures from the office of the New York State Comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, at least. And really, it shouldn’t be a surprise if bank headcounts do decline for the year – 2024 was an all-time high for the industry’s footprint in New York City. There were 201,500 financiers employed in the city, a number that finally eclipsed the previous record, which was 201,100, set in 2000.
However, DiNapoli’s numbers come with a caveat. “This downward trend was also seen in preliminary data for recent years,” the report said, “but was reversed once the data were revised.”
If the securities sector does indeed add jobs in 2025, it’ll be interesting to see where exactly. A lot of banks are cutting, not hiring – Morgan Stanley, as well as Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. Maybe the current figures are correct?
Separately, the Comptroller’s office also noted that 2025’s bonus pool could potentially reach “the highest level on record” if profits continue to grow in the securities industry. A bonus pool of $60bn among distributed to 200k-ish financiers means an average bonus of ~$300k. Not bad at all, even if New York job numbers are static.
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