"Wall Street's unemployed look to cupcakes, Omaha" by Bloomberg News | August 17, 2008
NEW YORK - Jessica Walter didn't go to Harvard University to study cupcakes, but they're what she does since losing her job as a vice president in credit strategy at Bear Stearns Cos.
"I want to teach kids to cook," said Walter, 27, who founded Cupcake Kids in New York to provide birthday parties and cooking classes for children. "The goal is to have this be my full-time job and make enough to live."
Wall Street professionals are trying new careers, and fetching smaller salaries, amid the elimination of 76,670 investment jobs in the Americas following the global credit crunch.
Bankers are "buying businesses for themselves, moving west or to Europe, including Russia, or to Dubai," said Jeanne Branthover, managing director of Boyden Global Executive Search in New York. "They're also moving totally outside what they do, buying a retail store or a ranch."
Traders and bankers who leave finance can expect to earn a fraction of what they used to. Compensation for employees on Wall Street averaged $399,360 in 2007, compared with $62,390 for New York City jobs outside the securities industry, according to the state comptroller's office. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. which has cut 1,500 jobs, paid its employees an average of $661,490 last year, company filings show.
The wealth disparity in this country is a scandal and disgrace -- especially when the country is falling apart and shipping all its money out the door!!!
Bond salesmen and traders are trying everything from bartending to real-estate sales to make insurance and tuition payments for their families.
They should have saved some of that $$$.
I'd never have to work again off just ONE YEARS PAY!!!
Joshua Perksy took to the streets after being laid off as an investment banker at Los Angeles-based Houlihan Lokey. He strolled New York's Park Avenue in June wearing a sandwich board reading "Experienced MIT Grad For Hire."
"It's been slow and frustrating," said Persky, 48. "The only places to turn are hedge funds and boutique banks. I've never been unemployed this long." While his gambit generated some job leads, none has panned out so far, Persky said. He's considering a move to Omaha.
Why Omaha?
