Cold Day, Cold Facts On Wall St.;Hutton Employes Learn Who's Now Redundant'
Carlos Pastor stepped from the E.F. Hutton Group Inc. headquarters building into today's bone-chilling rain with his hands jammed into his pockets and his shoulders hunched up. The wind gusted. It was a lousy day to lose a job.</br></br>Six months ago, Pastor graduated from college and came to work at Hutton as a support clerk in the investment firm's block trading department. He thought that he was about to begin a long and secure career. But by the end of today, he expected to be out of work-along with all but three of the approximately 60 stock traders in his department.</br></br>"I never expected this to happen. Right now, it's just confusing," Pastor said. "We're getting shafted. We're definitely getting shafted. ... They're all pretty ticked off up there."</br></br>Pastor is one of an estimated 5,000 Hutton employes expected to lose their jobs by early next year because of the firm's merger with Shearson Lehman Bros. Ending 83 years of independence, Hutton sought the Shearson merger because of problems stemming from its past legal difficulties and the October stock market collapse.</br></br>Hundreds of employes were notified of their fate today. Whole departments, such as the Hutton block trading department, were virtually wiped out by layoffs, employes said. The firings were heaviest in the investment banking area, including corporate finance, mergers and institutional sales and trading, the employes said.