“There were a lot of unfilled jobs where the bids just kept going higher and higher,” he said.

That’s the scene on Wall Street’s upper echelons. Lower down, legions are also leaving in frustration.

For traders and investment bankers, the pandemic meant longer hours, often while working remotely, juggling child care and rising costs.

While banks saw market activity and revenue soar in 2020, they showed restraint when setting year-end rewards. Some managers told staff that their improved performance had more to do with external forces, and that it would be ugly to dole out higher bonuses in a pandemic. Besides, banks’ lending arms had set aside billions of dollars to cover potential defaults. Then this year, much of those reserves were reabsorbed into their bottom lines.

The result is that many employees are feeling overworked and under-appreciated.

“These people are exhausted and really need to have a life—and that’s why they are quitting,” said Claudio Antonini, who set up a business last year as a career coach for unfulfilled investment-banking professionals. “They can’t date, they can’t have a romantic life or even interact with other people.”

Junior bankers, at least, scored significant raises and other concessions in the first half of this year after some at Goldman Sachs made their frustrations known with a slide deck that leaked and put a harsh spotlight on the industry.

JPMorgan recently surpassed Wells Fargo & Co. in commanding the largest workforce in U.S. banking with some 265,800 people, roughly the population of Buffalo, New York. Because of that size, the company offers a microcosm of other issues at play within the financial industry and the broader labor market.

CEO Jamie Dimon has been leading the firm for more than 15 years, and recently received an incentive package to stay another five. The lengthening tenures of Dimon and other heads of big U.S. banks have put a damper on upward mobility, prompting some rising stars to consider opportunities outside their own companies.

JPMorgan was among the most aggressive in requiring U.S. employees to return to offices, leaving some staffers stewing and creating a hiring opportunity for firms offering more flexibility. In some outposts, such as San Francisco, returning JPMorgan workers initially found it hard to buy lunch because so few local companies were summoning people back that restaurants stayed shut.