NEW YORK - WHEN Matt Prendergast was laid off in 2008 after Bear Stearns collapsed, he expected to find a new job right away. With more than 20 years' experience as an investment banker, he thought he was sitting pretty. A year and a half later, he is still looking for work.

'When Bear Stearns happened, the thought was, that would be the watershed event and the market would let off the appropriate amount of steam and things would settle down,' said Mr Prendergast, 51, a former managing director who headed a banking team focused on the insurance sector. 'In reality, that turned out to be the tip of the iceberg,' he said.

Though few outside the financial industry will shed tears, Wall Street is experiencing a jobless recovery. The biggest banks have bounced back from the worst financial crisis in 70 years, but for thousands of former mid-level executives like Mr Prendergast, work remains elusive.

Financial companies have slashed about 80,000 securities, commodities and investment jobs in the United States since employment peaked in mid-2008 and the credit crisis set the stage for a costly rescue funded by taxpayers.

The profits are back, especially at firms like Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co, and bonuses are soaring too. Wall Street bonuses rose 17 per cent in 2009 to US$20.3 billion (S$28.6 billion), according to a report this week by the New York Comptroller. But the big paydays have not translated into bigger payrolls. 'Wall Street is a long way from back,' said John Carter, a recruiter at New York's Hagan-Ricci Group Inc. 'There's no question that from the peak of 2006 and rolling into 2007, there are still a lot of people displaced.'

All told, financial firms employ about 793,000 people in securities, commodities and investments in the United States, down from 872,000 in June 2008, just before the worst of the financial crisis, according to government statistics.