New York Fed in hiring spree

The Financial Times reports:

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is aggressively hiring traders as its seeks to manage its burgeoning securities holdings, making the central bank one of Wall Street’s most active recruiters of financial talent.

The New York Fed – the arm of the US central bank that implements its monetary policy – plans to increase the staff in its markets group to 400 by the end of the year – up from 240 at the end of 2007.

The Fed, which says that most of its new recruits come from private sector financial firms, is hiring employees as many banks, rating agencies, hedge funds and private equity groups shed staff. New York city officials recently estimated that the sector’s woes would lead to a loss of up to 140,000 jobs.

The Fed’s need for more traders is a direct consequence of the central bank’s efforts to keep credit flowing through the US economy. The Fed has been buying fixed-income securities at such a rate that its assets have more than doubled to $2,000bn in the past year, leading the central bank to conclude that it needs more people to monitor the markets and to manage its credit risks.

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