Meredith Whitney: Laid-Off Wall Street Employees 'Sitting On Their Couches'

Meredith Whitney: Laid-Off Wall Street Employees 'Sitting On Their Couches'

The Wall Street firing spree is only half over, if you believe "prophet" analyst Meredith Whitney.

The banking industry is going to slash "another 50,000" jobs, Whitney, founder and CEO of the investment research firm Meredith Whitney Advisory Group, told Bloomberg TV Tuesday, adding that the banks "are really midway through firing."

And with so many out of a job already, the boost in layoffs could be bad news for those ex-Wall Streeters looking for work, Whitney said.

"The problem to date has been those that have been laid off have been sitting on their couches because they don't want to take a downgrade in pay, and they are not going back to work, and the longer you are out of work, the longer, the more difficult it is to get a new job," Whitney said.

Deutsche Bank announced on Tuesday that it plans to lay off 1,900 employees, or nearly 2 percent of its workforce, as its earnings plunged. Last year, the industry passed the 200,000 layoff mark, according to Bloomberg.

"The big banks are effectively on their backs," Whitney said. She said that since shareholders are demanding higher profitability, banks are firing high-paid employees in order to boost their bottom lines.

There's some reason to listen to Whitney. The analyst dubbed "an oracle" by Michael Lewis first made headlines after she correctly predicted in a research note in 2007 that Citigroup would have to cut its dividend and raise capital, calling attention to the fact that banks had taken on too much risk that could result in a meltdown.

Since then, Whitney's made some less reliable predictions, including a 2010 guess that municipalities would soon experience “50 to 100 sizable defaults.”

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