Following the deaths of two junior bankers in one month and a Wall Street Journal investigation that uncovered a grueling work culture, on September 12th J.P. Morgan Chase proposed a solution: an 80-hour limit on their investment bankers’ work week with some exceptions. While an 80-hour work week may not seem like a schedule worth celebrating to those outside of the industry, some J.P. Morgan junior bankers are reporting that the policy has already made a difference in their work-life balance.
“For people in finance, 80 hours is a week where you can go to the gym, you can take an hour here or there and come home to decompress,” said a current J.P. Morgan investment banking analyst who asked to remain anonymous to avoid scrutiny from his employer. “Today I left the office at 6:30 p.m., had time to eat dinner and talk to my parents…because of the 80-hour cap, [the managers] haven’t added anything to my plate this week.”
For this analyst, who has been working from J.P. Morgan’s Midtown office for the past two years, 90-hours was considered the average work week before the policy, with the occasional 110-to-120-hour week mixed in. The policy, which was implemented early this past summer prior to the public announcement, has been adopted across seniority levels. Bankers receive warning when they are about to reach their 80-hour limit. In the case where a 100-hour week is worked, Human Resources reaches out directly to bankers and their managers to investigate why these hours are needed and what can be done to ease the workload.
The Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that managers would keep their reports at their desks outside of business hours until as late as 5 a.m. the following day, as well as superiors retaliating against juniors for taking vacation time. The investigation was prompted by the death of two Bank of America employees in May 2024. Luke Lukenas III, 35, died of a blood clot following several 100-hour work weeks while in the midst of a $2 billion deal. A week later, another Bank of America employee, Adnan Deumic, 25, collapsed while playing soccer at an industry event and passed away after failing to respond to treatment.
Investment banking hours are similar to those of the oil rig industry and medical residencies. Oil rig workers are expected to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week whereas medical residents are limited to 80-hours a week, a rule implemented by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education in 2003. And while bankers aren’t driven by the dangers of explosive oil or the high stakes of an emergency room, client demands create a pressure of their own. The J.P. Morgan analyst said that with the 80-hour policy, HR will only make exceptions for late nights in the case of client requests. “They’re like, ‘Hey, what’s causing the team to have a late night? Just want to check in and make sure it was 100% absolutely necessary for the client and not just creating extra work for our juniors,’” the analyst said of his manager’s typical response.
The J.P. Morgan announcement has made ripples across Midtown. Some junior bankers, like Leonardo Reggiani at FTI Capital Advisors on 6th Avenue, don’t think the policy will have much of an effect. “Even if you go look at the new J.P. Morgan policy, there is a small note that says the rule can have exceptions in the case of active mandates,” said Reggiani. An active mandate is when a proposed pitch is officially accepted by a client and turns into a deal. “Pretty much most of those guy’s work is active mandates. So it’s not really helpful.”
A former PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant who has worked directly with banks like Morgan Stanley and Citi Bank said she doesn’t think the changes will stick due to the personality types that investment banking attracts. “The main problem is that people are very anxious to get into these jobs and then they’ll do anything to outwork each other.”
It is unclear whether this policy will become normalized across the industry. According to a recent follow-up article in The Wall Street Journal, none of the other U.S. investment banks have implemented a formal time limit policy. But for analysts at J.P. Morgan, like the Midtown-based analyst, they are embracing the change with open arms. “Two years ago, if I was done at 10 p.m., I would think, ‘This is weird.’” But now, “even [his] parents have noticed” his increase in free time. “It’s like, ‘oh, you look really upbeat.’”