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Hiring surge follows tariff-induced pause

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Senior hires include Citigroup ( C/PN ) and UBS executives

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Junior staff recruitment rose 200% in August, search firm

says

By Tatiana Bautzer, Saeed Azhar and Isla Binnie

NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) - Wall Street banks have

hired dozens of senior executives in recent months, as improved

economic sentiment has spurred mergers and IPOs after a lull

earlier in the year due to concerns over the effect of U.S.

tariffs.

The surge in job-hopping, which typically occurs in the

spring, illustrates how rising confidence has prompted banks to

staff up to handle a wave of dealmaking.

"It's been an active summer in investment banking," said

Troy Rohrbaugh, co-CEO of JPMorgan's ( JPM ) commercial and investment

bank. "But we've also been strategically hiring for the

long-term in sectors and geographies where we think we can

continue to grow share."

On Friday, JPMorgan ( JPM ) named industry veteran Jerry Lee as

global chair of investment banking who will be joining from

rival Goldman Sachs ( GS ). The bank has recently added several senior

bankers in technology, energy and activism defense and hired

more than 300 bankers between January and April across its

global banking unit.

"Just at the moment when hiring was really supposed to kick

off, strong tariff uncertainty really shook the markets and

shook a lot of these banks, and therefore they said 'Hey, let's

hold off'," said Meridith Dennes, managing partner at financial

search firm Prospect Rock Partners. "As the markets stabilized,

hiring started to pick up in July."

Wall Street executives usually receive and consider job

offers between January and April, weeks after receiving their

yearly bonuses. But the 2025 hiring season was interrupted by

the announcement of U.S. tariffs that President Donald Trump

called "Liberation Day."

Talks for M&A and capital markets transactions froze. "The

tariffs put a hard stop on hiring and banks started to

downsize," said Alan Johnson, founder of compensation

consultancy Johnson Associates.

In June, as investment banking activity resumed, job

openings that were on hold materialized, according to bankers

and recruiters.

"There's been no let up," Julian Bell, head of Americas at

executive search firm Sheffield Haworth. "We've been offering

and closing on people all year without a pause and we're still

hard at it... it's active across the market."

Among the recent senior hires were Citigroup's ( C/PN ) new

co-heads of M&A, Guillermo Baygual and Drago Rajkovic, as well

as Pankaj Goel, co-head for technology investment banking who

all came from JPMorgan ( JPM ), hired by Citi's head of banking Viswas

Raghavan. Elsewhere, UBS added Taylor Henricks as its

head of M&A in the Americas alongside a raft of other additions.

Although recruitment improved after tariff-fueled freezing,

it is still below more active years in the last decade, said

Alan Johnson, founder of compensation consultancy Johnson

Associates.

While hiring for senior managing director positions has been

steady, banks started hiring more junior staff in August,

according to Tom Ragland, founder and CEO of financial services

search firm the Harrison-Rush Group.

He reported a 200% increase in inbound and unsolicited

messages from investment banks wanting associates and vice

presidents -- typically early-career positions in banks -- in

the week to August 13. This was a rebound from the first half of

the year, when Ragland received 30% fewer hiring mandates for

junior roles than in the same period of 2024.

Boutique investment banks appear especially optimistic.

Evercore ( EVR ) announced late in July a deal to buy British

boutique investment bank Robey Warshaw for $196 million.

Evercore ( EVR ) will now have more than 400 bankers in nine countries

in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Lazard has hired 14 managing directors in 2025 as a way to

reach the goal of doubling revenue by 2030, it said in

July. Other areas that have been actively hiring are wealth

management and private credit, according to Johnson Associates.

Investment banking revenue was tipped to rise 20% this year

before April, but that target is no longer achievable and banks

are building up their teams for next year, Alan Johnson added.

The latest hiring decisions are backed by some deals getting

closed, Dennes said.

"A lot of folks had talked about building up a huge pipeline

in the fourth quarter of 2024, and then subsequently, it was

really tough to execute deals due to market uncertainty in the

first half of 2025," she said. "If you don't have any deals

closed, you don't have any money to hire people," she said.