How some are coping: Since JP Morgan can notify Bear Stearns employees that they'll soon have no jobs but can't actually fire them until the merger is done, they still get paid. To do essentially nothing. So while many are no doubt beating the bushes for new jobs, NY Magazine reports that some are chilling at spas and working out at the gym....
“I’d say 50 percent of my department comes in at some point on a given day, and the trading floor is empty,” says one of the thousands of doomed employees who’ll receive full pay until JPMorgan Chase takes over next month. The paychecks keep coming thanks to a convenient technicality: “We’re informing people every day,” says JPMorgan spokesman Joe Evangelisti....Laid-off bankers will receive at least three weeks of severance for every year served, plus a bonus for sticking around till the sale closes. For now, they’re becoming spa swans and gym rats. “I take one call a week, maybe,” says the Bear employee. “Sometimes I have to, like, print something.”
Bear Bankers Hibernate With Pay -- Until they get laid off. - NY Magazine
I can imagine the anxiety that the Bear employees had to face in the past few months. This would be much needed break for them. The job market is tough these days. Once the merger is done, many will be facing a new wave of worries and stress.
Posted by: corinne | May 12, 2008 at 05:42 PM