An 80-hour work week means working from 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. six days a weekânot the norm for most Americans, who log an average of 34 hours a week.
But for some young Wall Street bankers, a maximum 80-hour week will be a relief.
JPMorgan Chase is now putting a cap on after hours new investigations showed that young investment bankers are working more than 100 hours a week.
Bank of America is also trying to enforce an 80-hour week limit with a new time reporting tool, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources. The tool is said to be rolling out next week and will require new bankers to log daily hours instead of weekly hours. It also requires more detail about what the bankers are working on and which senior staff are managing them in each task.
Changes come after his death The 35-year-old junior banker at Bank of America Leo Lukenas III earlier this year. Lukenas joined Bank of America in 2023 as an associate and died in May 2024 of a blood clot in his heart. Although the coroner's report did not link the death to overwork, Lukenas reportedly worked 110-hour weeks on a $2 billion acquisition for the bank and indicated before his death that he wanted to leave because of the long hours.
Related: JPMorgan says AI cash flow software reduces human labor by almost 90%
or WSJ investigation reported in August that Bank of America bosses routinely pressured junior bankers to lie about the number of hours they worked, bypassing the policies implemented a decade ago following the death of an investment banking intern at Bank of America's London office.
The 21-year-old intern, Moritz Erhardt, had epilepsy and died of an epileptic fit. He had worked until 6 in the morning for three days in a row. Bank of America next asked the little bankers take at least four weekend days off per month and take their annual leave.
After the investigation, Bank of America asked the junior bankers to go to higher levels or human resources if managers overworked them. The new time reporting tool also aims to make it harder for junior bankers to minimize how many hours they spend in the office and hold managers more accountable to the bank's boundaries.
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley do not yet have policy limits on how many hours analysts and associates can work, but Goldman has a “protected on SaturdayPolicy blocking Friday 9pm to Sunday 9am as holiday.