Outsourcing: Dashing Wall Street Dreams For Ivy Grads

by James Yu | August 15, 2008 at 12:53 am

Outsourcing is here, it’s growing, and it kind of sucks. First it was limited to low level work: call centers and their ilk; things American college grads weren’t competing for. But now, more and more, outsourcing is rapidly encroaching on jobs that have historically gone to Ivy League students: analyst positions at New York investment banks.

According to a recently published article in the Times, Wall Street’s woes have fueled a bona fide bonanza of work in cheaper locales like India and Eastern Europe, where the research tasks that were once handed to newly-minted college grads and M.B.A.’s for salaries in excess of six-figures can be had for a fraction of the cost.

At India-based Copal Partners, which “churns out equity, fixed income and trading research for big name analysts and banks… business is up about 40 percent this year alone.” Similar upturns in work have been seen by other third-party firms as well.

It doesn’t seem like outsourcing will stop just there:

After research, the next wave may include more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors… In the future, executives in India like to joke, the only function for highly paid bankers in New York or London will be to greet clients and shake hands when the deals close.

More sobering quotes for all you finance types after the jump.

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