eFinancialCareers

The world's biggest bond fund is asking Wall Street firms to refer recently downsized employees as it seeks to fill 275 new slots. A Morgan Stanley technology center in Montreal will create 500 local jobs. While securities industry employment in the U.S. posts record highs each month, industry payrolls within New York City are falling. And San Francisco boutique Thomas Weisel Partners is cutting 13 percent of its work force. *** Sensing... Read more

UBS will lay off as many as 2,600 people from its investment bank over the remainder of this year, and will cut 2,900 more jobs elsewhere in the company by the middle of 2009. The casualties include the Swiss bank's entire 300-person U.S. municipal bond department. The cuts were outlined in the bank's first quarter results announcement, issued Tuesday. UBS AG reported a quarterly net loss of 11.5 billion Swiss francs... Read more

Recruiters and accounting firm insiders report a strong demand for accountants and CPAs in public accounting, the corporate market, and financial services and alternative investment firms in Chicago. "If you're an accountant in the Chicago area, it's a great marketplace," says one of them, Dave Falardeau of 10k Financial Recruiters. Indeed, Chicago is no exception to the nationwide shortage of accounting talent. Despite the slowdown in hiring in many industries... Read more

Official employment figures for the securities industry are sending mixed signals, with industry headcount in New York City shrinking steadily since September while nationwide employment in securities and related fields continues to post record highs. Friday's non-farm payrolls report for April showed U.S. payrolls in "securities, commodity contracts, and investments" climbed by a seasonally adjusted 2,200 jobs last month, to a record 867,600. It was the fourth monthly record in... Read more

Sensing a recruiting opportunity in Wall Street's downsizing, Pimco has asked several investment banks to refer recently laid-off employees about vacancies at the world's biggest bond fund manager. Newport Beach, Calif.-based Pimco plans more than new 275 positions and has interviewed 475 candidates so far this year, the Financial Times reports. Its current headcount stands at 1,100. "There is a lot of tremendous talent out there," Chief Operating Officer Dick Weil told... Read more

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Cash equivalents, seemingly the most boring and lifeless of financial products, are in a state of ferment. And where there is change, there is opportunity. Since late last year, one short-term funding market after another has all but shut down. First it was asset-backed commercial paper and its kissing cousins, structured investment vehicles. Next came auction-rate securities. Recently even Libor - the survey-based bank rate benchmark that underlies a large proportion... Read more

Though portfolio managers and analysts get most of the attention, the companies they work for couldn't function without the people behind the scenes. In Boston, there's a strong demand for professionals to fill these jobs. Finding candidates, though, isn't always easy. They require specialized sets of skills such as international tax and accounting, notes Alex Cook, head of the asset management practice at Conley & Co. in Boston. "Trying to find... Read more

This is a good time for financial professionals who are fluent in Chinese, Japanese or other Asian languages. Why? Consider: Big Japanese banks may pump billions of dollars into struggling Wall Street firms, says the Times of London. The trade deficit with China continues to break records and Chinese markets attract U.S. investors worried about volatile stocks. South Korea's economy continues to be strong, as is Taiwan's. Though there are openings... Read more

While investment banks hemorrhage jobs, hedge funds continue to hire. But crossing the aisle is no easy task. One William Street Capital Management, a new asset-backed securities hedge fund launched by ex-Lehman securitization chief David Sherr, is one of at least 10 fund startups that plan to raise more than $1 billion each this year, according to Bloomberg. To be sure, the job opportunities within these funds are dwarfed by the more... Read more

The hedge fund job market is robust in the Chicago area, particularly for mid-level professionals in due diligence, risk management and hedge-fund administration. Experienced professionals with Ph.D.s in sciences or math are also in demand. "So far this year, there is still strong hiring," says Scott Ruoti, Vice President at Harmer Associates, a Chicago-based recruiting firm. His firm is seeing a "surprising amount" of hedge-fund hiring activity, he says. Industry insiders agree... Read more

Securities jobs ended 2007 at a record high, despite layoffs. Goldman geared up to fire as many as 1,500 underperformers. Another member of Merrill's old guard exited. And T. Rowe Price hired a U.S. equity specialist away from a sovereign fund. Headcount in the U.S. securities industry continued to creep upward in the second half of 2007, despite all the layoff announcements, Labor Department figures show. During 2007, industry employment climbed... Read more

If you work at Bear Stearns, don't rush to leave your job at what could be the bottom. That's the message headhunters are putting out to panicked Bear employees. Media coverage of JPMorgan's prospective takeover of Bear Stearns emphasizes the prospect of layoffs for between one-third and one-half of the troubled investment bank's 14,000 employees. But recruiters say the reality is a bit more nuanced. "People tend under these circumstances to... Read more

Fitch Ratings will cut 150 jobs by September. RBS named more than 20 global and regional division heads for credit and financial institutions teams. Fitch Ratings anticipates eliminating 150 jobs, roughly 7 percent of its work force, by September. Its Paris-based parent, Fimalac, made the announcement while releasing results for its December quarter. Citing "restricted issuance activity and uncertainty in credit capital markets," Fimalac said Fitch revenue could fall 10 -... Read more

The trading debacle at Societe Generale could give a boost to Wall Street's internal watchdogs, the risk and compliance professionals who populate back- and middle offices. In a world of increasingly complex trading vehicles and demanding regulators, compensation, stature and headcounts within departments that oversee trading activity are already on the upswing. The latest events will likely accelerate the trend, even though SocGen's rogue trader constructed his phony futures positions from... Read more

There's both bad news and good news (we're serious!) for Bear Stearns' 600 campus hires and summer interns. As expected, Bear's new owner, JPMorgan Chase, has rescinded many of the job offers the company had made to this year's crop of new college graduates and MBAs. But even there, the news is not all dire. Students hired to work in Bear's energy, prime brokerage or merchant banking divisions will join JPMorgan, according... Read more