WSJ's Deal Journal likened last week's federal jobs report to a 'winning lottery ticket' that pays out only enough to buy a second one.  The unemployment rate fell to a 19-month low and the finance industry showed a measured improvement.  But it wasn't as much as everyone had hoped for - banks, brokerages and insurance companies added about 600 jobs in December, but their collective payroll stayed almost 43,000 shy of its level at the end of 2009.  

While financial institutions far away from Wall Street accounted for many of those lost jobs - the feds shut down and sold some 157 banks - there were also cuts high on the finance food chain - e.g., D.E. Shaw and Credit Suisse, collectively, laid off 400 employees late last year.

NYU economics professor Lawrence White said that "Goldman is really the only place where the good times have returned. … The rest of these guys are in sort of stabilization mode."  He added that the industry’s labor market is still searching for an equilibrium - after the implosion of the financial sector in 2008 and 2009. 

Some help may come from Congress, which at some point may loosen the purse strings and free up funds so the SEC and CFTC can go out and fill more than a thousand opened.  On 12/21, lawmakers passed a measure to freeze federal funding until at least March.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley did some more catching up to Goldman - both banks won government approval to sell stocks and bonds in China, opening a new front in the 3-way league table war.

Does this mean that job-hunters should learn how to say "road show" in Mandarin?  

[WSJ Deal Jnl, 1/7]