The debacle at Bear Stearns is not only threatening the jobs of the firm’s 8,000 employees in New York, but could also put some disabled people out of work.
JPMorgan Chase, which has agreed to buy Bear for $10 a share, wants to dismantle the firm’s jobs program for people with disabilities, according to sources familiar with the matter.
That means about 40 Bear workers with disabilities who were given jobs at the firm over the years will likely be laid off.
In 2006, Bear was honored with Title I of the ADA Employment Award for its “significant commitment to the hiring of people with disabilities,” according to a press release from Mayor Bloomberg’s office. The awards were in conjunction with the 16th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“I don’t see why they are doing this when they are offering these huge retention packages to senior bankers to try to keep them on board after the merger,” said one person close to Bear.
Roughly half of Bear’s total 14,000 work force could be laid off following the completion of the merger – many of whom are back-office workers. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan chief executive, is currently reviewing the various Bear units to see where cuts can be made.
One Bear employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the company’s 84-person internal audit unit had recently been reviewed and that all but 23 workers face the ax.
No pink slips have been issued yet, as the deal has not been closed, persons close to the situation said, but final determinations on already reviewed units are said to have been made.
Separately, Wall Street headhunters have been hit hard. One recruiter at BOC Staffing Solutions in Midtown told of having to yank verbal offers of employment from JPMorgan for at least five back-office pros – with salaries as high as six figures, plus bonuses – just days before Bear’s dirt-cheap sale to JPMorgan.
The spectacular fire sale put the prospective JPMorgan jobs – one a lucrative management post – on ice, according to Howard Ross, managing director at BOC, who has recommended candidates to JP Morgan in the past.
With additional reporting by John Aidan Byrne