Real average annual wages in New York City’s securities industry fell 21.5 per cent to $311,279 in 2009 from 2008, Crain’s New York Business reported yesterday.

The figures were taken from an analysis of new federal data by the Independent Budget Office on a blog posting Tuesday by David Belkin, a senior economist for the IBO. Over a span of two years, the wages fell 24.6 per cent.

The steep decline was primarily caused by the industry's “crack-up in 2008,” Belkin wrote. Firms posted record losses, revenues fell by half and year-end bonus pools, which are recorded in the first quarter of 2009, shrank by nearly 40 per cent.

New York's securities industry lost 18,400 jobs in 2009, the IBO reported, dragging salaries down for those who remained, with non-bonus baseline wages declining by 7.4 per cent in 2009.

By comparison, securities industry wages dropped by 10.1 per cent in the post-9/11 recession, Belkin wrote. The highest previous decline was in 1947, when wages fell 18 per cent.