Many Wall Street’s junior bankers said they’re battling burnout as they log 100-hour work weeks — with some putting their health at risk and others sleeping at the office, according to a recent survey.
The concern about their grueling schedules come amid intensified debate about the industry’s work culture after the death of 35-year-old Bank of America associate Leo Lukenas — who was allegedly pulling 100-hour weeks before suffering a heart attack on May 2.
There is no evidence that Lukenas’ shocking death was related to his work.
But Overheard on Wall Street, a social media platform popular with bankers, spoke to young staffers last month who said their intense workload was taking a toll on their well-being.
As many as 200 junior bankers said they slept only four hours every night because they worked excessive hours, the survey found.
“Going into banking, you are making the conscious decision of giving up your lifestyle,” Hamilton Lin, co-founder of Wall Street Training & Advisory, told Bloomberg, which first reported the survey.
“You are selling your soul to the devil, but it’s a fair trade.”
That trade off could come with serious consequences to their health.
One banker at Lazard who quit last year said she worked through her long shift despite experiencing cardiac arrest symptoms. She opted to stay at her desk out of fear of reprisals from her superiors if she missed her deadlines. She left the company months later after her health continued to deteriorate.
Another former Houlihan Lokey trainee said her program was so intense that she brought a sleeping bag to the office.
Overall, the employees who were asked to share about the state of their physical and mental health gave an average response ranging from 2 to 3 out of 10, according to Bloomberg.
Those polled said that managers are grappling with already-stretched teams as financial institutions recover from the post-COVID decline in M&A activity.
Grueling hours have long been a feature on Wall Street, with its promise of eye-watering pay packets that are unrivaled elsewhere.
That culture still prioritizes deal-making over employee’s well-being, despite perks such as gym memberships now being offered in many work contracts, according to experts.
“The culture in banking isn’t keeping up with the times and needs of junior bankers,” Stephan Meier, a professor at Columbia Business School, told Bloomberg.
“Instead, supervisors keep making the mistake of viewing trainees as resources to be used or wasted. Either firms squeeze out as much as possible of their junior bankers, and that’s good for the business, or if they don’t, it hurts the performance of the organization. That’s the wrong mindset.”
That lack of work-life balance was infamously decried in 2021 by Wall Street ‘meme lord’ Litquidity, who helped air the grievances of Goldman Sachs bankers clocking up more than 100 hours a week.
The social media account, now unmasked as Deutsche Bank financier Henry “Hank” Medina, shared an internal analysis on how the long hours impacted their physical and mental health.
The issue of staff well-being was even raised at JP Morgan’s annual investor day last month, with one shareholder grilling Jennifer Piepszak, co-head of commercial and investment banking, about how the firm treated younger rank-and-file employees.
“We can’t just sit in our offices and go through business reviews,” she said. “We have to be out in the field and every one of us are, so that we have a sense of where the pressure might be mounting, and we need to give people the resources to be able to cope.”
