These little-town blues, it seems, could be here to stay.
New York is taking it on the chin - the finance industry is, according to data - as a one-two punch of Coronavirus and police brutality protests are putting a damper on hiring, for now, at least.
For JPMorgan Chase ($JPM), job postings first took a dive in March in New York state, and again in late May, marking a total decline from 2020's peak of more than 70%.
As early as March, the market was beginning to see the impact of Coronavirus show up in job postings - a bad sign for the rest of the US. An analysis published by Bloomberg said that 8%, or more than 20,000 from a peak of 800,000, jobs have been lost in the Coronavirus crisis, which may take until 2026 to recover.
At Bank of America ($BAC), postings are down nearly 60% from their 2020 peak. For both JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, some of these roles are tied to branches - which is why the decline tracked here is more precipitous than our final chart.
With Goldman Sachs ($GS), steeper cuts were reflected in its investment banking division's job postings (not shown). But Goldman is in the process of creating a digital behemoth, in its Marcus app, which is taking on not just fintech startups and recent IPOs, but its brick-and-mortar-tethered competition listed in the charts above.
The market is beginning the final month of the first fully COVID-impacted quarter, and in a little over a month, each of these banks will announce earnings. Whether or not they can provide any guidance on hiring may be interpreted as a sign of relief (or, alternately, doom) by pundits and policy-watchers.
About the Data:
Thinknum tracks companies using the information they post online - jobs, social and web traffic, product sales, and app ratings - and creates data sets that measure factors like hiring, revenue, and foot traffic. Data sets may not be fully comprehensive (they only account for what is available on the web), but they can be used to gauge performance factors like staffing and sales.
