Morgan Stanley, the 6th-largest U.S. bank by assets, closed its books on 2010 hirings, though it apparently also ruled out layoffs through the end of the year.  A spokesperson said only that the company intends to hire brokers for the Morgan Stanley Smith Barney unit, its joint venture with Citigroup.  The freeze includes the sales and trading units.  A hiring freeze actually began in August, but is just now being extended on account of continued weakness in the markets.

Bank of America reportedly is firing as many as 400 employees in its global banking and markets division, while Barclays Capital, Credit Suisse Group and others have started to reduce staff in Europe.  Over the past two weeks, equity analysts have been cutting Q3 earnings estimates for Morgan Stanley and other banks. citing weak trading in the quarter.

At 6/30/10, Morgan Stanley's headcount was nearly 63,000, up 3% from a year earlier.  [Bloomberg, 9/28]