Bank of America Hires More Junior Bankers

Sydney Ember

Bank of America has been on a hiring spree.

As part of its effort to improve working conditions for its youngest employees in the global corporate and investment banking unit, the company has hired more junior bankers, the latest sign of a shifting corporate culture on Wall Street.

The incoming class of full-time analysts and associates, who start work later this month, will be almost 40 percent larger than last year’s class. This year’s summer analyst and associate class was also about 40 percent bigger than it was in 2013.

A spokesman for Bank of America said the company had previously hired a few hundred analysts and associates into its summer and full-time programs.

“Our increased hiring reflects our desire to invest in our people in light of our growing activity levels and the need to provide more support to our junior bankers to have a better experience,” Christian Meissner, the head of global corporate and investment banking, said in an internal memorandum sent last week. The memo provided a review of the first half of the year, including updates on mergers and acquisitions and initial public offerings, according to the spokesman.

The changes to the junior banking program were first reported by The Financial Times. A spokesman for Bank of America confirmed the memo’s contents.

Over the last year, investment banks across Wall Street have tried to ease the grueling schedules of junior bankers, who have been accustomed to working through the weekends and into the wee hours of the morning. Many of these institutions, including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, have told young employees to take a few days off a month, on the weekend.

The sea change is driven in part by fears across the industry that an increasing number of ambitious college graduates are losing interest in finance. Instead, they are landing prestigious jobs in Silicon Valley, at companies like Google and Facebook. Others are heading to technology start-ups, which offer more flexible work schedules and the lure of future wealth.

The New York Times