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The banks with the best and worst working hours

Bankers work a lot – that’s not news. But which bankers work the most?

2022 might have been a low point for banking revenues, but it definitely wasn’t a low point for bank working hours – our end of year survey for the year suggested that a significant majority of bankers were working the same hours as they were in 2021, a huge year for revenues.

Goldman Sachs came out on top for the second year in a row in forum site Wall Street Oasis’ industry report of bank working hours, averaging nearly 90 hours a week, the same as last year. It’s a lot – but the infamous 100-hour weeks complained about by Goldman Sachs juniors might, luckily, be a thing of the past.

The top part of WSO’s ranking is overwhelmingly American, and overwhelmingly boutiques, besides Goldman. Of other major banks, it’s a mix of European and American – with Credit Suisse leading the pack ahead of Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and UBS.

Despite huge differences in working hours, there isn’t a huge difference in salaries for juniors – with Goldman Sachs VPs, for instance, reporting the same salaries as Wells Fargo VPs despite working more than 20 hours more a week. Goldman, however, generally pays much higher total compensation than Wells Fargo when bonuses are added, but Centerview - which pays the highest total compensation of the lot - works its employees an average of 10 hours less each week according to WSO. 

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Have a confidential story, tip, or comment you’d like to share? Contact: Zeno.Toulon@efinancialcareers.com in the first instance.

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AUTHORZeno Toulon
  • pb
    pbug56
    3 February 2022

    What articles like this seem to assume is that all the employees in IB's are highly compensated bankers and super-techies that both see themselves as better than anyone else in a firm - in fact see anyone else as there to be their servants. Most employees in IB's are underpaid, and while most don't work 100 hour weeks, odds are that they work a lot more hours than they should have to, primarily because to save money to pay the biggies, they badly understaff and underpay the areas that make it all work. IOTW, back and middle office, trade floor support, most of the IT people, sourcing, compliance and others. I was responsible for about $25 million in spend at one job, badly underpaid, and worked 60 to 70 hours per week - the longer times if I was working remotely rather than a very long daily commute. But do nothing or incompetent bosses worked fewer hours and got paid a lot more.

  • Oc
    Octav Ciobanu
    31 December 2021

    The problem with this all company's is, make the people slaves , and the people I see like to be slaves accepting to play how the rich people likes they to play, this is wrong, and I think to make an appeal to all wich sleep, guys wakeup, don't sleep to long in your fear, and leave this rich people to brush the floor with you, stand up and deal with them by your rights!

  • He
    HedgeFundKing
    12 February 2021

    According to David Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, they track the hours their Investment Bankers work. According to an interview in 2020, the average GS Investment Banker works 65 hours (see here: https://www.youtube.com/wat..., i.e. an astonishing 10 hours less than the table above. Probably the other numbers are equally inflated (I work in M&A and surely for an average week they are inflated).

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