DUBAI - JPMorgan Chase plans to add to its headcount in 2024 as the firm sees opportunities in everything from deal-making to US wealth management to international retail banking, bucking a trend among its Wall Street rivals, which have shed thousands of jobs in recent months.
After a subdued couple of years, the biggest United States bank is seeing “plenty of growth” and “all the components are for a strong year”, president Daniel Pinto said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Francine Lacqua on Jan 17 from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The lender is also seeing growth opportunities for its payments division.
JPMorgan “has the returns and the firepower to continue investing through the cycles and that is really what allows us to continue, regardless of the economic environment, to continue growing”, Mr Pinto said. “When I look at our plans, we will increase our staff this year for sure.”
The bank employs over 300,000 people and “the number of people that we employ has been growing and not shrinking”, he said.
His comments come after JPMorgan closed out the most profitable year in US banking history and forecast that the windfall may continue in 2024. During recent earnings calls, many Wall Street executives said they expect a deal-making pickup following a prolonged drought that brought investment-banking revenue to the lowest level in more than a decade in 2023.
Still, JPMorgan’s hiring plans stand in contrast to many of its largest competitors. Citigroup said last week it will eliminate 20,000 roles to save as much as US$2.5 billion (S$3.4 billion) as part of chief executive officer Jane Fraser’s quest to boost its lagging returns.
Morgan Stanley had to set aside US$353 million in severance cost in 2023, while Goldman Sachs said its number of staff decreased 7 per cent during 2023, which reflected a “headcount reduction initiative” across the firm.
Mr Pinto has been sole president of JPMorgan for two years, with business-line heads reporting jointly to him and his boss, chief executive Jamie Dimon.
He rose through the firm’s massive trading business to oversee the corporate and investment bank, which he still does today, in addition to holding the president role. BLOOMBERG
