Business

Most bankers who make $400K say they’re not paid enough

For many traders, Wall Street has become Bawl Street.

Most traders and bankers — who take home an average salary of about $404,000 a year — feel they’re paid unfairly and lack job security, according to a soon-to-be-completed survey.

The sour attitude comes after a tough year on Wall Street that saw bank profits take a hit and many banks tighten their belts through layoffs.

“The climate is not robust for hiring,” said Michael Karp, chief executive of Options Group, which is taking the survey of Wall Street workers through May.

“The hiring in the first quarter this year has been as slow as the first quarter in 2009,” Karp said.

In fact, the only group on Wall Street that was mostly happy with their paychecks were investment bankers at US banks — with 75 percent saying they thought they were paid fairly, according to the survey.

Stock traders believe they are getting the shortest end of the stick, with 84 percent of traders at those foreign banks believing they’re unfairly paid, according to the preliminary data of 1,818 people.

While a lower percentage of US traders feel they are underpaid, compared with traders at European banks, 75 percent believe they are shafted on payday, the survey found.

Across all banks, the median stock trader’s compensation — which includes salary and bonus — remained flat from 2014, the survey said.

‘The climate is not robust for hiring. The hiring in the first quarter this year has been as slow as the first quarter in 2009.’

 - Michael Karp, chief executive of Options Group

The survey found 66 percent of traders of bonds, currencies and commodities at US banks think they are underpaid. Perhaps that’s because that group got an average raise of 9.5 percent last year.

The results come just weeks after New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli reported that bonuses in the securities industry skidded 9 percent last year, to $146,200, the lowest in three years.

The bonus pool fell, in large part, because of a 10.5 percent drop in profits across the industry, according to the comptroller’s office.

But those numbers also included lower-paid compliance officers — the people who are there to make sure that traders and bankers are following the rules.

Last year, DiNapoli’s office reported that the average salary in the securities industry was $404,800 in 2014, the last year for which data is available.

The exception on Wall Street was investment bankers at US banks — those who broker the deals that lead to mega-mergers like last year’s $160 billion takeover of Allergan by Pfizer.

Employees at hedge funds with assets of $1 billion or more reported the wildest swings in their total compensation, with bigger jumps (132 percent) and cuts (65 percent) in bonuses than their banking sell-side counterparts.