Honig International in the News

NOVEMBER 5, 2002
NEWSCHANNEL 4 @ 6:00 PM (WNBC)
Layoffs on Wall Street

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CHUCK SCARBOROUGH, ANCHOR: It's been a tough year for Wall Street with thousands of jobs lost in the financial services sector. And as Vivian Lee reports other businesses are feeling the effects. [GO TO VIDEO]

VIVIAN LEE, REPORTER [VO]: Brad G was an investment banker. After losing his job with a Wall Street firm he invested part of his severance into his own exhibit managing business.

BRAD GISHEN, SELF-EMPLOYED: When you're working for yourself you can't predict what's going to happen in the next month. Just in general spending, you generally do cut down.

LEE: Same story for these foreign exchange brokers.

ALEX LEE, FOREIGN EXCHANGE BROKER: After I got laid off, I bounced back a couple of months later. I finally kind of-I knew what the value of a dollar was then.

LEE: So do the people who work this lower Manhattan deli. The owner not seeing as many dollars now as he did a year ago.

ROBERT GARBER: Everyone from Bear Stearns to Goldman Sachs has drastically cut their budget and in turn, less charges.

LEE [END VO]: Less corporate spending, less personal spending. That's thanks to a brutal year for the world of finance. Tens of thousands of Wall Street layoffs have resulted from a year of corporate scandal and the economic malaise that still lingers after 9/11. As a result, it's taking a bite out of other sectors of the economy. [VO] Between September of last year and this year more than 11% of New York jobs in securities and commodities brokerage cut. That's 21,000 jobs lost, and about 3% of jobs in hospitality and personal services were cut. That's 7500 jobs lost. The Securities Industry Association says 2002 is the lowest profit-earning year in seven years that means more layoffs could be announced before the year is out.

BARRY HONIG, HONIG INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE SEARCH: Investment banking clearly will be one of the harder hit, merger and acquisitions, and equity research.

LEE: And hundreds of millions of dollars lost in tax revenue. That's partly why the city faces a billion dollar shortfall in the budget this year, and at least five billion next year.

RONNIE LOWENSTEIN, NYC INDEPENDENT BUDGET OFFICE: Any perspective shortfalls for this year are going to be addressed with things like spending cuts of various sorts, potential tax increases.

LEE: Deborah Rivera has been a corporate headhunter for seven years and she sees no immediate solution in sight.

DEBOARAH RIVERA, THE SUCCESSION GROUP: It's almost impossible to place someone unless they have some specialty that's really in demand right now.

LEE: And that casts a pall over one of New York's biggest economic engines.

And the third largest sector for jobs. In lower Manhattan, Vivian Lee,

Newschannel 4.