US bank Citigroup asks young European bankers to take vacation

Take two weeks of vacation by the end of September!

This is the request made by the American bank Citigroup to its junior European bankers to improve their working conditions.

They will also be entitled, along with analysts and executives, to one weekend per month without work between Friday at 5 p.m. and Monday at 9 a.m.

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These measures are in place for the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region and affect around 600 people.

The objective is to enable them to achieve a better balance between their professional and personal life while the activity has been breaking records for several months.

The mergers and acquisitions market has indeed experienced a historic leap since early 2021. Some 2,800 billion dollars in transactions were signed in the first half of the year, underlines the statistics provider Refinitiv.

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A sharp increase in activity which directly impacts the workload of young bankers;

“

”explains

a spokesperson for the bank's French office.

Within the Citigroup office in France, recruitment has also accelerated, from a workforce of 180 people in 2019 to 250 today.

Salaries around $ 100,000 per year

In the same vein to improve well-being at work, the new president of Citigroup, Jane Fraser, has banned Zoom meetings on Fridays and also plans to make May 28 a holiday for all employees of the group. . She even announced, in March, a cultural "reset" of the company with the aim of reducing the pressure on bankers.

Measures also accompanied by salary increases.

This summer, a general increase in the salaries of first and second year associates was achieved within investment banks.

Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, UBS and Deutsche Bank raised the salaries of their first-year analysts by $ 15,000, now paid around $ 100,000 a year.

Goldman Sachs has climbed to $ 125,000 per year for analysts employed for two years.

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This change in the consideration of young bankers follows a presentation, made in February, by 13 junior bankers at Goldman Sachs emphasizing that they worked 100 hours per week and slept 5 hours per night in order to cope with a load of excessive work and "

. Half of the group then threatened to leave the bank by the summer if their working conditions did not improve. Statements that had caused a stir in the banking community.