Lazard CEO Says Junior Bankers Are Fine With 80-90 Hour Weeks As Long As The Work Is “Interesting” And “Important”

Lazard Chief Executive Officer Peter Orszag doesn’t seem to be bothered by recent complaints of junior bankers being overworked on Wall Street. As a matter of fact, he took to Bloomberg yesterday to proclaim his young bankers are actually asking for longer hours, providing the work is interesting.

Whether its just PR spin aside, Orszag’s comments come days after we reported that JPMorgan is now capping junior bankers’ hours at 80 per week, while Bank of America is rolling out a tool requiring detailed time tracking. 

Those moves come years after the infamous Goldman Sachs slide deck, wherein junior bankers complained about working long hours on…of all places, Wall Street. Despite this, we wrote back in July that junior bankers were working 100 hour weeks again

Orszag said in an interview this week: “There are many, many people who would rather work whatever number of hours per week on interesting, important things rather than fewer hours on things that are not that interesting. And that’s what we’re looking for. That’s the trade-off.”

The Bloomberg report says Orszag attributes his ability to ask for 80-90 hour weeks to giving remote work two days a week and offering “flexibility to ensure staff still have the agency to focus on other important things in their lives”. 

Employers must offer junior bankers more meaningful work, not just “make-work,” said Orszag, though professions do require effort at the end of the day.

As we noted last week, the debate over junior bankers’ hours resurfaced after Bank of America associate Leo Lukenas died in May, with complaints that hours were exceeding 100 a week despite prior commitments to protect worker health.

Orszag concluded by hailing the company’s diversity as its strength: “The evidence is clear that more diverse teams produce better outcomes when the problems are not routine. We’re going to be better on behalf of our clients as a result.”