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Monday, September 22, 2008

Lehman bust - job impact


Collapse of the Lehman Brothers in the world's biggest ever bankruptcy story may have sent thousands of its employees flocking the job market, but the 158-year-old American investment bank giant still seems to be in hiring mood.

Once known as one of the favourite places to work in the financial services space, especially due to its fat pay packages, Lehman Brothers had a workforce of close to 26,000 employees at the last count. But its filing for bankruptcy protection on September 15 saw nearly all its employees on a lookout for new employers.

However, Lehman Brothers seems to be continuing with its hiring activities, as it has posted at least four new job vacancies for the US after its bankruptcy filing. These vacancies are for positions like Investor Accounting Specialist, Foreclosure Specialist and Default Supervisor, and they seem to have been posted on the bank's website a day after the bankruptcy filing or later.

In addition, Lehman Brothers has over a dozen recruitment events lined up across the world through September, October and November.

The interested candidates, if any, can register for these recruiting events and presentations in the career section of Lehman's website.

"These events are intended for those who are applying for early years programmes, internships or first year Full Time Analyst/Associate programme hires," it says on its website.

One such event, "Equities and Fixed Income PhD Recruiting Presentation", is scheduled for as early as September 23 in Massachusetts and is for Harvard and MIT students in their penultimate or final year of their PhD programme.

Ten such recruitment events are lined up for the UK, while there are three others for Italy through October and November.

While two vacancies -- Investor Accounting Specialist and Supervisor Default positions -- were posted on September 16, it posted one vacancy each on September 17 and 18 for Foreclosure Specialist and Investor Accounting Specialist posts, respectively.

However, there have been no new job postings after its bankruptcy filing for Asia-Pacific and Europe and Middle East regions. Lehman has posted at least four job vacancies in September for India, where it employs over 2,500 people, but all of them were posted before the bankruptcy filing.

However, a number of job portals continue to have close to 20 recruitment ads for Lehman's India operations for positions like Test Engineer (QA), Java Senior Developer, Prime Services Analyst, Project Manager, Capital Resource Analyst and Vice President - Global Sales & Banking Technology.

One of Indian job portals, naukri.com, vacancies are also there for the posts of Recruitment Manager and Recruitment Executives at Lehman Brothers. However, these job website postings are believed to have been put before the bank's collapse.

Lehman set up BPO operations in India in 2005 and according to the fact-sheet of the firm, the centre saw the number of employees going up by eight times by the middle of this year and had declared its plans to grow the operations. In fact, it was recruiting till as recently as couple of months back.

The company has in all about 2,500 people working for it in India, including those in the BPO unit. Recent news reports have said the company had asked a section of its BPO staff to quit.

In its new job postings for the US, Lehman says that the job profile of a "Foreclosure Specialist" would involve monitoring "the actions of the Foreclosure Attorneys... to ensure that all paperwork needed by the Attorneys is completed timely and accurately. To update internal systems for checks and balances and to apply money as appropriately directed."

Besides, the Investor Accounting Specialist would be responsible for the monthly reconciliation of investor custodial accounts and clearing accounts, while Supervisor (Default) would be responsible for the overall operation of the Collection Department.

Lehman has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, which allows a company to restructure while creditor claims are held at bay.

A number of the company's employees are already said to have joined other companies, including its Mergers Advisor Group Chairman and co-head Mark Shafir, who has joined Citigroup.

Sharif continued at Lehman through its bankruptcy filing and is said to have helped negotiate the USD 1.75-billion sale of its US investment banking business to British banking major Barclays.

Hundreds of Lehman investors protest in Hong Kong

Hundreds of angry Lehman Brothers investors rallied in Hong Kong today to demand the government help secure their money after the US investment bank collapsed this past week.

The investors, many of them nearing or at retirement age, waved investment papers and chanted slogans outside the territory's government headquarters as they accused regulators of not doing enough to safeguard their interests.