ADP sees executive bonuses down 20 percent in 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Executives bonuses will fall 20 percent in 2009, and up to 50 percent in the financial industry, due to the economic crisis, the chief financial officer of Automatic Data Processing Inc (ADP.O), the world's largest payroll processing company, said on Wednesday.

"We would expect across the board of all our clients that bonuses would be down in the neighborhood of 20 percent year over year," the executive, Chris Reidy, told the Reuters Global Finance Summit in New York.

In the financial industry, the haircut "certainly would be more than that" and could range from 30 percent to 50 percent, he said.

Last week, the New York Assembly estimated that bonuses in the financial industry could tumble 41 percent next year, which would top the plunge that occurred in the year after the 9/11 attacks.

Executive bonuses have come under scrutiny amid the U.S. government's $700 billion bailout of the financial industry.

ADP process one in every six payroll payments in the United States.

(Reporting by Juan Lagorio, editing by John Wallace)