Wall Street CEO Peter Orszag downplays worries about junior bankers long hours: Interesting work

A top Wall Street chief executive has dismissed concerns about younger bankers suffering from burnout, claiming junior staff should be able to tolerate long hours of “interesting” work.Lazard CEO Peter Orszag appeared to downplay suggestions that newer arrivals to the finance industry are being overworked — despite JP Morgan’s capping its work week for junior team members at 80 hours.The comments from the Wall Street titan come after a young Bank of America executive, who was being subjected to a gruesome 100-hour work week, died earlier this year.“There are many professions where you can’t get around the effort part of it,” the former Obama administration official told Bloomberg TV, claiming the financial services giant creates a “sense of excitement” for its newer hires.Orszag, a Democrat party kingmaker and donor, said fresh-faced financiers enjoy the buzz of “working on important things” such as money-spinning M&A deals.“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,” he told interviewer David Rubenstein, the founder of the Carlyle private equity firm and the owner of the Baltimore Orioles.“That’s what we are looking for.

That’s the trade-off,” he added, warning potential recruits that a high-flying Wall Street career was not “make-work” — a term for meaningless jobs created just to keep someone busy.The 55-year-old, who served as Barack Obama’s budget czar between 2009 and 2010, pointed to the firm’s flexible two days-per-week teleworking policy as proof it offers proper work-life balance.“Even if you are working hard you need to have some degree of agency and ability to, if something else is important in your life, to take time off,” he said in the interview that was broadcast earlier on Monday.His comments might raise eyebrows at a time when the working culture on Wall Stre...