"[The WallStreet banks] all hire too many people when the going is good because they have to throw bodies at all the demand for M&A, lending, credit, trading, and then that doesn't last forever, and in a normal year they're culling underperformers, and in a complete wipeout year ..." Josh Brown on banks doing a lot of high volume firing
 
It is highly pro-cyclical in the way it hires and fires.