ALBANY, New York–The average bonus paid to securities industry employees in New York City grew 15 per cent last year to more than US$164,000, the largest average Wall Street bonus since the 2008 financial crisis and the third highest on record, New York's state comptroller reported yesterday.The securities industry has been profitable for five consecutive years, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said. It had 165,200 workers in New York City as of December, or 12.6 per cent fewer than before the crisis.
Profits for broker/dealer operations of some 200 New York Stock Exchange members–the traditional measure of profitability for the securities industry–totalled nearly US$16.7 billion last year, down 30 per cent from a year earlier."Although profits were lower than the prior year, the industry still had a good year in 2013 despite costly legal settlements and higher interest rates," DiNapoli said."Wall Street continues to demonstrate resilience as it evolves in a changing regulatory environment."
Regulatory changes have required larger reserves, limited proprietary trading and imposed other changes intended to reduce risk. Firms now defer a larger share of bonuses, and the comptroller's report for 2013 includes money deferred from prior years.The report showed the bonus pool for the city's securities employees grew 15 per cent last year to US$26.7 billion during the traditional December-March bonus season, with the pool increased by 44 per cent over the past two years driven by deferred compensation.
The average salary including bonuses in 2012 was US$360,700, or more than five times greater than the rest of the rest of the private sector. The industry accounted for 22 per cent of all private sector city wages in 2012 and 5 per cent of the jobs, the report said. The securities industry generated an estimated US$3.8 billion in city taxes in fiscal year 2013 and US$10.3 billion in state taxes in the state's last fiscal year.
AP