Lehman Employees Feeling the Pain

Lehman Brothers employees who watched their colleagues at Bear Stearns lose their jobs earlier this year are preparing for a similar fate in an already clogged field, reports the New York Times. “Everyone is walking around like they have just been Tasered,” said one Lehman employee. Making matters worse, many receive a sizable chunk of their paycheck in the form of stock and stock options, and shares have plunged from $60 to about $4 this year.

When Bear Stearns was sold, fewer than half of their 13,500 employees were kept on, casualties of cost cutting as duplicate jobs were eliminated. And, while the company’s stars had little trouble finding work, the continued deterioration of Wall Street’s own economy has flooded the market with resumes of more nominal job-seekers chasing just a trickle of openings.