Analysts at Goldman Sachs say they work 95-hour weeks and endure ‘inhuman’ treatment

Analysts at Goldman Sachs say they work 95-hour weeks and endure ‘inhuman’ treatment

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About a dozen first-year analysts say they work more than 95 hours a week on average, sleep just five hours a night and endure workplace abuse. The majority of them say their mental health has deteriorated significantly since they started working at the investment bank.

“There was a point where I did not eat, shower or do anything else this morning until after midnight,” said one analyst in the report.

The survey comes from a self-selected group of 13 first-year analysts who presented their findings to management in February, a bank spokesman said. The results of the survey’s analysts began circulating on social media this week and were reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

The bank says it listens to the concerns of its employees and works on solutions.

“We recognize that our people are very busy because the business is strong and the volumes are at historical levels,” the bank said in a statement. “A year in Covid, people are understandably quite stretched, so we listen to their concerns and take several steps to address them.”

Few people entering the pervasive world of Wall Street banking would expect nine to five. But analysts in the survey are pleading with their employer to limit their weekly working hours to 80.

“It’s beyond the level of ‘hardworking,'” one said. “It’s inhuman.”

One hundred percent of respondents said that their hours harmed their relationship with friends and family. About three-quarters of analysts said they believe they have been a victim of workplace abuse and whether they have sought help for mental health issues.

“My body is constantly physically sore and mentally I am in a very dark place,” one analyst wrote in the survey.

Virtually all of the analysts said they felt pressure from “unrealistic deadlines” and that they were avoided or ignored in meetings. Their report also provides solutions to management to rectify the situation.

“In order to deliver our best and deliver for the firm’s clients, we must be rested and free from an insurmountable amount of conflicting workflows,” the group said.

Although Wall Street banks, and especially Goldman, are known for sky-high salaries and even higher bonuses, this is not always the case for first-year analysts – the core of the food chain in the financial world.
A Goldman spokesman declined to comment on compensation. According to a Business Insider report last year, first-year investment banking analysts at Goldman and other top firms can expect a base salary of about $ 91,000.

The complaints in the survey contradict the more comfortable image that Wall Street banks have presented over the past few years. Faced with increasing competition for talent from the jeans and hoodie crowd in Silicon Valley, major banks have loosened their formal dress codes and expanded their family leave policies.

Goldman also tried to protect junior bankers weekend with a ‘Saturday rule’ that mandate analysts should be out of office from 9pm Friday to 9am Sunday, except in rare circumstances. (According to analysts in the survey, the rule is not always respected.)

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