JP Morgan Chase caps bankers’ week at 80 hours

America’s biggest investment bank is introducing an 80-hour cap on weekly hours for junior bankers amid concerns about a culture of overwork on Wall Street.
The first cap of its kind at JP Morgan Chase comes in response to an outcry about working conditions in finance following the death of a 35-year-old banker who was said to have been clocking 100-hour weeks.
Leo Lukenas III, a Bank of America employee and former Green Beret, died after allegedly working up to 15 hours a day for several weeks in a row while assigned to a $2 billion merger completed just before his death. The New York Office of the Chief Medical Examiner cited “acute coronary artery thrombus” as the cause of his death on May 2.
Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JP Morgan, said in May that it was a priority for the bank to understand “what can we learn from” Lukenas’s death.
JP Morgan declined to comment on the new cap on junior bankers’ working hours, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. It is understood that the cap will be lifted in some circumstances, such as during a live deal.
The 80-hour cap is the same as the limit for hours of medical residents — the equivalent of junior hospital doctors in the NHS — in New York state.
Junior bankers at JP Morgan are protected from being called upon to work from 6pm on Fridays to midday on Saturdays. They are also guaranteed one full weekend off every three months. The bank monitors bankers’ hours using self-reported time sheets.
At Bank of America, human resources is alerted when junior bankers’ hours exceed 80 a week.
HR will intervene to mandate time off if an employee works beyond 80 hours per week over an extended period, it is understood.
The bank has introduced a new tool requiring US-based junior investment bankers to log more details about their work, including daily hours, deals they are working on and which senior bankers are overseeing the assignments, the Wall Street Journal reported. Bank of America was contacted for comment.