Business News

JPMorgan, Bank of America Set 80-Hour Week Limit: Overworking

An 80-hour work week means working from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a week — not the norm for most Americans, who log an average of 34 hours a week.

But for some junior bankers on Wall Street, a full 80-hour week will be useful.

JPMorgan Chase is now limiting working hours after a new investigation showed that small investment banks are putting in more than 100 hours a week.

Bank of America is also trying to use 80 hours a week with a new reporting tool, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources. The tool will reportedly come into effect next week and will ask small bankers to record daily hours instead of weekly hours. It also asks for more information about what the banks are working on and which senior staff are in charge of each job.

The changes come after the death of 35-year-old banker Leo Lukenas III earlier this year. Lukenas joined Bank of America in 2023 as an associate and died in May 2024 of a blood clot in his heart. Although the coroner’s report did not link the death to overwork, Lukenas reportedly worked 110-hour weeks for a $2 billion buyout of the bank and expressed before his death that he wanted to leave because of the long hours.

Related: JPMorgan Says Its AI Cash Flow Software Cuts Human Labor By About 90 Percent

A WSJ investigation in August reported that Bank of America executives routinely pressured junior bankers to lie about the number of hours they worked, bypassing policies put in place a decade ago after the death of a former investment intern at Bank of America’s London office.

The 21-year-old student, Moritz Erhardt, had epilepsy and died of epilepsy. He worked until 6 am three days in a row. Bank of America then asked junior bankers to take at least four weekends off per month and take their annual vacation time.

After an investigation, Bank of America asked small business owners to go to higher offices or human resources if managers were overworking them. The new time reporting tool is also intended to make it harder for small bankers to reduce the number of hours they spend in the office and hold managers accountable to bank limits.

Related: Bank of America Threatens Workers Who Won’t Return to Office With ‘Disciplinary Action’ — Read What the Books Say

Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley no longer have policy limits on how many hours analysts and associates can work, but Goldman has a “protected Saturday” policy that blocks Friday from 9 p.m. to Sunday 9 a.m. as rest time.


Source link

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button