The guessing game is over for many Bank of America employees about job cuts - they and everyone else on the Street know 3,500 jobs will be cut now, and it's likely thousands more will follow.   As the bank prepares a list of the 3,500 jobs - positions and names - to be eliminated this quarter, the universal theme is "cost cutting."  Now and in the future."  It can be next to impossible to work under such conditions.

An secondary theme at is that these layoffs aren’t about withering product lines or poor individual performances.  They're about BofA managers getting more bang for their buck.  Accordingly, this does not bode well for mid-career Bank of Americans.  They don’t have as much experience or can call upon as many valuable client contacts as more senior workers. 

So, the old guard would appear to be "safe" [if that's even possible'], clinging to their jobs tighter than ever as the value of their stock and options plummeted in recent weeks.  Also safe are the younger staffers - analysts, associates, junior loan officers – who are still relatively cheap.

You Don't to Be Mid-Career and Middle-Aged.   Once again, it's this category of worker that's bearing the brunt of contraction at Bank of America, as well as across Wall Street.  For 3 years, from Q2 of 2008 to Q2 of 2011, almost half of workers aged 35 to 54 at U.S. investment banks and brokerages vanished (from the industry).  That translates into 113,000 individuals, according to an analysis of data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That compares to the fall of employees aged 20 to 34 - 39%, with 62,000 jobs lost - and the rise of bankers aged 55 and over - grew by 18%.

Doing the math, financial institutions can get rid of one mid-level hire rather than five or three more junior people.”   That's little consolation.  

For further details, go to:  [WSJ's FINS Finance, 8/19/11, by Kyle Stock]