Lehman staffers clog banks' hiring pipelines

By Elinor Comlay

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street banks are seeing a glut of resumes from Lehman Brothers, as staff there are contacting colleagues at other firms directly to find new jobs after their investment bank went bankrupt.

Some banks, including JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Credit Suisse (CSGN.VX), have told headhunting firms looking to find jobs for former Lehman Brothers (LEHMQ.PK) employees that they will not pay the firms for putting them in touch with these job candidates, because they are already inundated with direct applications.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, which filed for bankruptcy last week, has 26,000 employees. About 10,000 have been given jobs through at least the end of the year, after Barclays Capital (BARC.L) bought Lehman's North American capital markets business and other assets.

Headhunting firms said they are receiving scores of resumes from anxious former Lehman employees, but banks aren't interested in paying headhunters to interview these staffers.

"They said they were bombarded with Lehman referrals," said one recruiter.

Firms pay some recruiters on a contingency basis, that is, a bank pays a recruiter for linking it up with a possible candidate.

The glut of job-seekers from Lehman is the latest symptom of a broader jobs downturn on Wall Street which has gathered force in recent weeks as the financial crisis has intensified.

In New York, some 40,000 bankers and brokers could be laid off, which would be 15,000 more than initially forecast, Democratic Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in a statement on Monday.

Already this year, Citigroup has laid off some 14,000 employees, while Merrill Lynch had trimmed about 4,200 before Bank of America said it planned to buy the struggling investment bank last week. And when JPMorgan Chase & Co bought Bear Stearns Cos in March, about 60 percent of Bear Stearns staff lost their jobs.

Credit Suisse and JPMorgan declined comment on their recruitment expenditures.

(Reporting by Elinor Comlay; Editing by Bernard Orr)