Wall Street to Slash 21K Jobs

Wall Street's job creators aren't exactly living up to that billing. The market is soaring, and so are bank profits, but financial firms are preparing for a massive round of layoffs, analysts tell Fortune, estimating that the banks will cut nearly 21,000 jobs. That would be a bloodbath on par with the one that occurred during the financial crisis; 28,000 were eliminated in that purge, but that number included jobs lost in the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and at the time firms were failing, not prospering.

A new Boston Consulting Group report estimates that Wall Street will slash 12% of its workforce in the "short-term"—and "the estimate is possibly too low," says one industry insider. The banks have decided that they didn't cut enough jobs the first time around, and this time, a BCG analyst says, a lot more senior bankers could wind up in the crosshairs. One bright spot: Some smaller investment banks are actually hiring. (More Wall Street stories.)