Losing your job anywhere is disorienting, but imagine being laid off when you work in a foreign country. Not only is your source of income, and perhaps a good part of your identity, suddenly yanked away, but often you lose your right to remain in the country.
Add to that urgent disruption the calamity of a collapsing industry and you have the life more or less of thousands of American expatriates in banking and finance.
The archetype of the young international banker cut one of the most dashing figures of the age of globalization. Well-educated and well-connected, able to take their pick of jobs, they skipped across employers like they did countries for weekend getaways.
As recently as last fall, financial professionals who lost their jobs as Wall Street bled could hope for new positions overseas. But layoffs have spread quickly from New York to Europe and now to the Mideast and Asia, leaving a growing number of jobless expats, as they are known, with few places to turn and either stranded or forced to return home.
A rhyming refrain among laid-off bankers a few months ago — “Try Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai” — now seems hopelessly dated. Financial markets in all three cities have crashed.
Also out of date, the acronym “filth,” which long stood for “Failed in London? Try Hong Kong.” Many American and European investment banks have been trimming staff in Hong Kong as well. About 325,000 financial services jobs have been cut worldwide since August 2007, according to the International Labor Organization. Many banks have reduced bonuses by as much as 80 percent or cut them completely.
Because times were so good — during all or almost all of many of their careers — the weight of the current malaise is that much greater. The layoffs are affecting local bankers for multinationals as well as expats.
“I didn’t think it was possible,” said Marco Wong, a Singaporean who speaks both Chinese and English and has a master’s degree in wealth management. He was laid off from Citibank in January, just months after being courted by recruiters from Citibank, HSBC and Credit Suisse. “It was quite shocking,” he said.
While there are no reliable figures on the number of expatriate bankers who have been laid off, the cuts have been widespread. Even in the Middle East, where banks like Merrill Lynch and Citibank had hired dozens of investment bankers late last year to build large offices, expats are having to pack their bags.
How these newly unemployed will fare will depend on a combination of personal and family resources, networks and that intangible factor, resilience.
Asia was one of the last places to be affected by layoffs. Most economies here remained strong until exports began to plunge late last year and investor confidence crumbled. Big financial institutions like Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others have each laid off more than 100 employees in Asia this winter.
More layoffs are likely. “When you need to reduce costs quickly, you just take out 10 percent and that’s it, boom,” said one investment bank official who asked for anonymity because the subject was delicate.
Now some Hong Kong landlords are demanding three months’ security from bankers instead of the usual two, because of the risk the prospective tenants may be laid off. Since business is so slow, financial sector recruiters have begun scheduling long vacations.
Local banks in Asia, unlike European banks, have had fewer layoffs as a percentage of total employment because they largely avoided buying American securities in the last few years. But they have never employed large numbers of expatriates.
Many expats return home after losing their jobs. Some, seeing the writing on the wall, are even walking away from high-paying, high-pressure jobs.
When David Flynn, for example, moved to London from Australia four years ago, he loved being part of a bustling financial center ripe with career opportunities and fat bonuses. But as the recession set in, the excitement and work ebbed, and Mr. Flynn, 28, left his job at Union Bancaire Privée at the end of last year and moved back to Perth. Now he uses his overseas experience to advise clients on investments.
“I thought I could either sit in London and sit through this downturn or go back and live on my own terms,” Mr. Flynn said. “London is a great place, but if you don’t have the money to enjoy all the things that are good, you struggle.”
For bankers still trying to cling to their overseas perches, career counselors are generally telling them not to move, and to use their networks to look for jobs locally instead of sending résumés halfway around the world.
“Stay put,” said Paul Heng, the managing director of Next Career Consulting Group Asia, in Singapore. “I don’t think there is a refuge anywhere in this world,” he said.
In Asia, many of those losing their jobs seem to be following Mr. Heng’s advice for now. James E. Thompson, the chairman of Crown Worldwide Group, a large Hong Kong-based mover catering to expatriates, said there was no sign of an exodus.
London is different. Sandra Johnson, president of the Kensington and Chelsea Women’s Club in London, which provides social networking opportunities for Americans in London, said many families were leaving and fewer arriving. Membership in the club has dropped 10 percent from two years ago, to 1,100.
“It’s really difficult,” said Ms. Johnson, who moved to London with her family from Westchester County near New York City more than four years ago. “Some people just try to make it until the end of the year.”
Mr. Heng, the career consultant, said that he was encouraging some high-fliers to consider completely new careers. He cited a chief information officer of a technology company who just found a job he loves as a high school teacher. The pay is a lot lower, he said, but the job security is hard to beat.
HOLLYWOOD POLAROIDS
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