HSBC Announces No Bonuses for 2020
HSBC told its employees today that there will be no bonuses for 2020, but no jobs will be cut thanks to the zero bonuses. Call me privileged, but I can’t lie when I say it’s gotta be fucking brutal to put in 80 hours a week making $85k/yr and living in NYC paying NYC rent. This basically means that first year analysts will have very minimal savings ($10-12k max if you live frugally and have student loans, 401k, healthcare, etc and go out once a week like a normal 22 year old). Most first years save less than $10k from salary alone).
Thoughts?? If my bank follows this, the banking burnout would hit me immediately and my morale would go down 100% and definitely thinking about leaving soon even though I’ll prob just be a wimp and stay put
Yeah, 1-2 of my friends work at HSBC and are going to resign in the next month. Will recruit for other banking jobs or PE jobs in the meantime.
maybe I’m too privileged or not privileged enough I’m not sure how this comes out but I don’t agree with this at all. the purpose of being a banking grunt isn’t for the $50k bonus at the end of the year. it’s for the chance to make a couple bucks bonus in 10-20 years time. sure by all means leave and go to another bank if it’s that important but I wouldn’t be so concerned with 1st year analyst bonuses as a deciding factor as to how I want to structure the rest of my career
No offense, but that's 100% coming from a place of privilege. When you grow up poor everything is very different. I grew up in the South Bronx and went into IB to have an immediate impact on my family. This job isn't worth the base salary when you think about all the hours and things you have to give up.
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No reason to delete your post like that. It is important to leave it as the oringailyt for others' edification and understanding so they may benefit too.
I will recreate your innocent post for others: this user said: Is HSBC offering intern offers and are they auto?
Hey Sorry Bonus Cut
True - not sure if you noticed but the first letters of each of the words in your post spell out 'HSBC'
whoosh?
While I completely understand the frustration, think of the alternative. No one had to lose their job, in the midst of a global pandemic being able to even have savings this year is huge. You’re focusing on going out one night a week, other firms cut people who may now be focusing on their next meal. $85k is a lot better than $0k and who knows, you may have been the person who was let go at which point you may likely be saying “why didn’t they just cut bonuses instead of tearing apart my livelihood”.
Not trying to bash you because your point of view is understood completely, however the alternatives aren’t as pretty. If you were to throw your problems/struggles in a pile with other people’s and had to pick one you’d likely pick your own. Just my 2¢.
Edit: Not at all trying to praise socialism or some feel good "everyone should have an equal job" mantra here, just trying to shed light on the fact that we are extremely fortunate to even have a job. Again had they made cuts you may have been among them at which point you would be singing a very different song.
Might get some heat on this comment, but any thoughts on the following opinion that I would have if my bank announced the same thing:
Since when was investment banking (banks in general) a place where you praise socialism? If I am a top ranked analyst who worked my ass off, staffed on the biggest / most important deals for the bank because of my proven superior work product, why should I be happy that instead of job cuts, there will just be zero bonuses? Everyone signing up to do investment banking knows that there’s ups and downs. During the good years, banks are hiring left and right. During the tough times, banks are firing left and right. Basically, you know it’s possible that your bank will let you go in tough times.
So as a top analyst, why should I be all cheerful if my bank says “instead of saving money by firing people, we will save money by not firing a single person but instead give no bonus”? In my opinion, let the bottom 10-20% or whatever performers go, and use that to pay bonuses to the people left over even if its a smaller amount. Another viewpoint: what the hell is the point of DB laying off a ton of ppl in the last few years? I guess they should have just paid everyone zero bonuses and kept their jobs if that’s the “moral” thing to do. But no, I believe that banking is a competitive field where people go into it knowing they’ll get paid differently based on performance. No way some bum analyst who goes home at 8pm every night and fucks around at work all day working on the shittiest project gets to keep his job and get paid the same amount I do
In my opinion bonuses have always been poor nomenclature, they would more aptly be described as performance based pay, and are used as a retention tool to keep key talent. A wholesale ban on bonuses is effectively a subsidy for the strong performers to the weak performers, and in practice drives the best talent out of the bank, to retain the 35,000 bodies who would otherwise be laid off.
HSBC has always been a remarkable bureaucratic and inefficient entity, and the conceit at HSBC has always been that it is a gentler employer, which by and large pays less in exchange for providing its employees with financial stablilty. It is also a commercial bank at heart, and management likely see the investment banking as a perpetual underperformer. As someone who had a cup of coffee at HSBC, the joke was that the way you became a AD / VP there was by not finding a job at a real bank, and that half the firm could be laid off without skipping a beat.