/* */

Banks across Wall Street are honed in on cutting costs lately and it looks like the cuts will be hitting advisor training programs next year.

[pullquote]…cuts will be hitting advisor training programs next year[/pullquote]

Morgan Stanley Smith Barney announced they will bring on fewer recruits to its advisor-training program, reducing its current year count of 1,750 trainees to just 1,250 next year.

However, despite the smaller class size, division head Greg Fleming says the brokerage “still expects to ultimately have the same number of trainees succeed thanks to better selection of candidates and better integration of trainees into teams.”

Trainee class sizes vary widely across the four big brokerages. Merrill Lynch plans to hire 1,500 to 2,000 trainees this year, while Wells Fargo said it’s aiming for about 800 and UBS Wealth Management Americas has cited a target of 175.

(Noteworthy is that MSASSB boasts the largest headcount in the brokerage industry, with 17, 638 advisors. But its headcount has dropped a bit in recent quarters. The company attributes the decline to the pruning of lower producers, and has said it will continue to let go of underperformers.)

If you are a financial advisor thinking about making a change, send us a resume and we can talk about the job opportunities available.