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Morgan Stanley to Give $1,000 Bonuses to Rank-and-File Employees

Morgan Stanley to Give $1,000 Bonuses to Rank-and-File Employees

Morgan Stanley is doling out a special one-time gift for lower-compensated employees as the firm heads toward a record year for revenue, according to a note sent to staff Thursday. In the U.S., most workers earning below $150,000 will get a $1,000 bonus.

“To say 2020 has been an extraordinary year in not only our firm’s history but the world’s would be an understatement,” Chief Executive Officer James Gorman said in the note.

Morgan Stanley to Give $1,000 Bonuses to Rank-and-File Employees

Eligibility and payment will vary based on currency differences and cost of living across the New York-based firm’s global workforce. The bonus affects about 30,000 employees, or roughly half the staff.

The benefit adds to Gorman’s promise earlier this year not to cut the workforce in 2020 because of the pandemic. Many of his peers at competing firms, including Goldman Sachs Group Inc., have already abandoned that idea.

Morgan Stanley’s trading and dealmaking operations have been generating big revenue gains this year, and the firm’s lack of a major consumer-lending operation is shielding it from the pain of broader economic strains. The bank is on track to record the most revenue ever, approaching $45 billion, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.