Wall Street firms to cut 80,000 jobs in 18 months, Whitney says

Securities firms around the world will cut as many as 80,000 jobs in the next 18 months as revenue growth begins to slow, said Meredith Whitney, the former Oppenheimer & Co. analyst who now runs her own firm. The reductions, about 10 percent of current levels, will come after 2010 compensation payments, Whitney, 40, said in a report dated Aug. 31 and obtained by Bloomberg News today. The industry’s payouts will be “down dramatically,” said Whitney, who started New York-based Meredith Whitney Group after correctly predicting Citigroup Inc.’s dividend cut in 2007. “The key product drivers of Wall Street’s revenues and profits over the past decade have been in a structural decline over the past three years,” Whitney said in the report. “2010 marks the first year in many in which Wall Street-centric firms will go through structural changes.”