Profits are rebounding, New York state comptroller says, but securities industry is still poised to lay off thousands of workers

Wall Street bonuses totalled $20bn in 2012 as the financial industry's profits tripled in a year, despite layoffs and dire predictions for the future.

As public outrage over high Wall Street pay subsides, the securities industry is increasing its payout, according to a report released on Tuesday by New York state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, whose office analyzes bonus data based on taxes paid to New York city and state.

DiNapoli said bonuses rose 8%, which is in line with most predictions of compensation consultants. The average cash bonus for a worker in the New York securities industry was about $121,900 last year, according to DiNapoli.

This year, the securities industry tripled its profit to $24bn from $7.7bn, according to DiNapoli's survey, which covers firms that are members of the New York Stock Exchange. This is not a perfect measure, since many real estate and investing firms do not keep a seat on the New York Stock Exchange.

"Wall Street is still in transition, but it is slowly adjusting to changes in its economic and regulatory environment," DiNapoli said. "Profits and bonuses rebounded in 2012, but the industry is still restructuring. Despite its smaller size, the securities industry is still a very important part of the New York City and New York State economies."

The 2012 figure is well below the record average from 2006 of over $191,000. But it shows that bonuses have remained high through the financial crisis; in 2002, for example, the average bonus was only $60,100, according to DiNapoli's data.

Finance jobs currently pay about 5.34 times more than any other industry in the private sector, according to DiNapoli. "These are good jobs if you can get them," he said.

While the financial rank and file continue to do well, the riches for the elite skew much higher. Hedge-fund managers, for instance, get to keep more of their profits compared to bankers, and the results are visible in their pay.

The world's top 40 hedge fund bosses earned a total of $16.7bn in 2012, according to estimates published by Forbes on Tuesday. At the top of the list was David Tepper, the New Jersey-based founder of Appaloosa Management, who earned $2.2bn last year. He was followed by Carl Icahn, the veteran founder of Icahn Capital, on $1.9bn and SAC Capital founder Steve Cohen, who earned $1.3bn after fending off a federal investigation into insider trading.

In the securities industry, bonuses are paid out at year end and are usually a mix of cash and stock. The cash is paid out immediately, while the stock is distributed over three years. DiNapoli noted that 2012's higher bonuses reflected payments of the stock portion of bonuses from previous years. He predicted just before bonus season that the cash portion would fall.

While Wall Street pay was a flashpoint during the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011 and 2012, the loudest opposition seems to have abated, and banks have shown no urgency to reduce compensation, even though they are cutting staff. Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, among others, announced late last year that they would lose thousands of jobs.

The reductions in headcount often leave the same amount of money to be split among fewer employees, leading to higher bonuses.

At JP Morgan's investor conference in New York on Tuesday, chief financial officer Marianne Lake said the firm also expects to decrease headcount by 4,000 over the next year – mostly by not replacing employees who decide to leave. But, she said, it expects to keep the amount of money it spends on compensation "relatively consistent".

Late last year, Goldman Sachs took another tack: it cut hundreds of jobs which allowed it to cut bonus payments by 11% to $1.98bn.

On the higher end, Morgan Stanley has faced questions from activist investor David Einhorn over its pay to top executives, which he believes is too generous.

The profitability of the industry has not led to a recovery in the number of finance jobs in New York state, according to the comptroller's study. The state has only added 8,500 jobs since the financial crisis, even though it lost 28,300 during the same time.

Bonuses rose far more modestly than profits this year. Usually, Wall Street bonuses do not usually reflect the profitability of their firms, as compensation consultant Alan Johnson pointed out in a report last August.

Very often, the most productive workers at an investment bank are lone wolves who don't have their compensation tacked to the profitability of their firms. Last year, Johnson correctly predicted that Wall Street compensation would either be slightly down or only modestly up less than 10% for investment bankers, hedge fund managers, and senior management.

Still, the announcement of higher Wall Street bonuses rankled with activists. Citizen Action of New York, a grassroots organization, noted the jump in Wall Street bonuses but commented on Twitter: "meanwhile, worker wages are stagnant."