JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs ended 2024 with massive results, with JPMorgan’s profits increasing by 50%. Goldmans soared 105%, driven by rising investment banking fees. Here’s what this means for jobs across Wall Street in 2025.
Big banks on Wednesday reported strong fourth-quarter profits, driven by increased appetite for corporate lending, institutional trading and dealmaking, a trend that could drive hiring in 2025. .
JPMorgan Chase & Co. opens Wall Street’s earnings season by reporting a 50% increase in profits, driven by a 49% year-over-year increase in investment banking revenue and double-digit growth in trading revenue. Ta. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs reported a 105% jump in profit for the three months ended Dec. 31, driven by demand for corporate deals and capital raising. Citigroup also reported a 35% year-over-year increase in investment banking revenue in the fourth quarter.
The strong performance comes after several years of weak demand for Wall Street’s bread-and-butter businesses, layoffs, reduced bonuses and an overall calm job environment.
Currently, annual bonuses could be up to 35% higher than a year ago, given the strong performance in 2024, especially in the trading sector. As Business Insider reported last week, banks have started sharing bonus amounts with employees.
More broadly, Wall Street headhunters say hiring has increased in recent months in some areas, including junior banking and back-office technical positions. They expect this change to continue until 2025.
“Goldman’s 45% jump in profits and CEO David Solomon’s bullish outlook on M&A are a sign that the hiring market is booming,” said Meridith Dennes, managing partner at recruiting firm Prospect Rock Partners. “This shows a significant change in the “Banks that aggressively downsized during the 2022-2023 economic downturn are now selectively restructuring their deal teams.”
Of course, in 2025, jobs on Wall Street may also be difficult. The industry’s notoriously long working hours are likely to intensify as demand for deals and financing continues. At the same time, work-from-home options are shrinking, with JPMorgan last week directing employees on hybrid schedules to return to the office five days a week starting in March.
Here are four trends in financial industry employment that could drive job growth on Wall Street in 2025.
deal maker
After sluggish deal-making in recent years, demand for mergers and acquisitions has increased in recent months, helped by lower borrowing costs due to lower interest rates. The M&A streak is expected to continue into 2025, thanks in part to a more business-friendly regulatory environment created under President-elect Donald Trump.
This rise is already having an impact on employment. As BI recently reported, John Weinberg, chairman and CEO of elite boutique investment bank Evercore, said in December that he was spending an unusual amount of time on year-end hiring.
“For the most part, there’s not a lot of recruiting going on in November or December,” he said at a Goldman Sachs conference in New York. “If you look at my schedule, you’ll see that I’m talking to and hiring new people almost every day,” he added.
Regarding the employment outlook, he said: “We can probably expect hiring activity to increase, not decrease.”
Recruiters told BI in December that demand for M&A bankers is surging in industries that appear to be transaction-heavy, including high-tech, healthcare, restructuring, industrials, consumer retail, and financial institutions. He said he expects this trend to continue this year.
junior banker
Demand for young talent in the investment banking sector is also increasing. Headhunter Dens sees particularly strong demand for what she calls “experienced associates,” but there’s also particularly strong demand for vice presidents, who tend to be in the middle of the hierarchy at investment banks. He said there is.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. ramped up off-cycle hiring of young investment bankers late last year, according to people familiar with the bank’s hiring efforts and online job boards. JPMorgan executives told BI in October that the bank was hiring at all levels of investment banking as deal flow soared.
It remains to be seen whether JPMorgan’s recruitment drive will continue into 2025. On Wednesday, the bank’s chief financial officer, Jeremy Burnham, told investors that JPMorgan intends to keep headcount flat this year, following a 2% headcount increase in 2024. This includes a 3% increase in the asset and asset management division, according to company filings.
Goldman Sachs’ career portal had 15 open positions for junior bankers, or analyst or associate level positions, in New York, London and San Francisco. In January, one position was for an associate to handle transactions for financial institutions and wealth management clients, and another was for an IB associate to focus on the entertainment sector. The third associate position focused on general merger and acquisition execution.
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IT related jobs
A range of financial services companies, from banks to hedge funds, are expected to hire more technologists as they explore and build new artificial intelligence capabilities, headhunters said.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in July that the company expects to add thousands of AI-related jobs over the next few years. Hedge funds and proprietary trading firms have also gotten in on the act, shelling out as much as $350,000 a year to acquire coveted AI researchers and engineers.
Some private equity firms are paying so-called AI business executives up to $2 million, including base salary and bonuses, recruiters told BI last year.
Check out our top BI tips for landing a Wall Street tech job in 2025.
private credit and financing
So-called private credit has steadily increased in recent years as asset managers like Apollo and Blackstone have grown and banks have taken on loans they deem too risky for their balance sheets.
Furthermore, as companies’ demand for capital raising, including through M&A, increases, there are signs that demand for non-bank loans will further increase in 2025.
Goldman Sachs on Monday announced a new structure to take advantage of growing funding needs. The new Capital Solutions Group aims to provide alternative financing sources to corporate customers and financial sponsors.
This month, Bloomberg reported that hedge fund Point72 hired former Blackstone managing director Todd Hirsch to build a new private credit business.
Goldman on Wednesday reported record performance in debt and equity financing, including financing on behalf of clients. Goldman’s CEO said lending was a “huge strategic opportunity” for the bank, thanks to “important structural trends currently occurring in the financial world” such as the rise of private credit. .
Find out the BI do’s and don’ts to land a job in the booming private credit industry.