Uncle Sam Reaching out to Unemployed Wallstreeters

The bankruptcies and buyouts of former Wall Street major players like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers Holdings (LEHMQ.PK) and Merrill Lynch, and the massive layoffs implemented by international insurer AIG,  Citigroup (C) and other surviving companies ; have prompted regulatory agencies throughout Washington D.C to start hiring unemployed Wall Streeters. “We have a phenomenal opportunity right now to bring in much more current and useful skill sets, with people who have lost jobs on Wall Street and are anxious to do something, and do something very constructive,” SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro told Congress during a March 11 hearing.

Underscoring Washington’s appeal as the financial industry shrinks, about 400 finance professionals have signed up for a New York job fair this month featuring nine federal agencies ranging from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission. That’s double the tally at similar events last year, organizers say.

Attendees at the April 24 event will include Virginia Donner, 43, who called a friend at the Federal Reserve after losing her job at a hedge fund in Greenwich, Connecticut. “When you’re looking for work and your industry has kind of imploded, you have to look at what your skills are and then figure out who’s hiring,” she said.

The job-seekers are among 23,300 people who lost industry work in New York in the year through February as banks worldwide announced almost $870 billion in losses and writedowns. [via Bloomberg]

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