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Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is telling its summer interns to take the night off.

Banking interns were instructed to leave the office by midnight and not return before 7 a.m., while also taking Saturdays off, Michael DuVally, a spokesman for the New York-based bank, said Wednesday.

Wall Street firms are attempting to reduce stress and improve conditions for their youngest workers. Goldman Sachs has increased salaries for junior employees and discouraged entry-level analysts from working weekends as many of the brightest college students seek careers in private equity or technology rather than investment banking.

Goldman Sachs hired just 3 percent of more than 267,000 job applicants last year, Chief Executive Officer Lloyd C. Blankfein said in February. Almost 90 percent of those offered a position chose to join, he said.

The new policy was reported earlier Wednesday by Reuters, which said Goldman Sachs has more than 2,900 summer interns this year.

(Updates with job applicants in fourth paragraph.)