Good morning. Attracting and retaining employees remains top of mind for C-suite leaders—and for JPMorgan Chase, this includes newly recruited recent graduates.
The largest bank in the U.S. has warned incoming analysts that they will be fired if they accept another job offer within a year and a half of joining, Fortune’s Eleanor Pringle reports. This reinforces CEO Jamie Dimon’s view grads accepting an analyst role at JPMorgan but intending to leave for private equity within a few years is behavior that is unethical.
An email sent last week by JPMorgan’s co-heads of global banking to welcome new graduates starting this summer had a stern warning: “If you accept a position with another company before joining us or within your first 18 months, you will be provided notice and your employment with the firm will end.”
The email was sent only to new employees in the U.S., Pringle writes, mostly because the issue of talent accepting future roles is more prevalent stateside than in other geographies. The policy aims to protect the bank from conflicts of interest and leaks of confidential information, while also making internal career advancement more attractive. Prior to last week’s update, the bank already maintained a robust stance on talent moving elsewhere.
While job-hopping remains a visible trend, especially among younger workers, it no longer guarantees a significant salary boost or career advantage as it did in previous years. Many recent graduates are also concerned about the uncertain economy.
According to the recent 2025 State of the Graduate report from the employment website Monster, three out of four (75%) graduates worry that the economy will impact their job prospects, up from 69% last year.
Meanwhile, 80% of graduates surveyed are concerned about job security while seeking employment in the current market, compared to 77% in 2024. The findings are based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. adults who are new and impending college graduates.
The research also found that business (24%) is the most popular field in which graduates intend to pursue a career. Other top areas include healthcare (18%), computer technology (18%), finance (17%), education (16%), and artificial intelligence (15%).
This reflects strategic career planning based on sectors that showed resilience during recent economic challenges, noted Giacomo Santangelo, an economist at Monster.
So, seemingly, many junior analysts landing a coveted role at JPMorgan may not be looking to jump ship very quickly. However, for younger employees in general, there are still factors that could prompt them to leave—47% would quit a job if their workplace became toxic, and 39% would leave to seek a healthier work-life balance, according to Monster.
JPMorgan does want to make itself an attractive place for young talent to grow their careers. For instance, analysts can now be promoted to associate after just two and a half years in the training program, instead of the previous three-year timeline, Pringle reports.
How are you working to retain early career, high-potential finance and accounting talent? I’d love to hear your strategies—send me an email.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Upcoming event: Emerging CFO: Agentic AI and the Future of Finance
Join us on Thursday, June 12 from 11 a.m. to noon ET for our next Emerging CFO webinar. AI agents are transforming the workplace and reshaping the boundaries of innovation, driving a new era of efficiency and providing finance leaders with essential tools to innovate and create value across their organizations. In this session, we’ll explore what CFOs need to know about this technology, the opportunity costs involved, and how to effectively use agentic AI to streamline workflows, improve decision-making, and augment human productivity at scale. Featured speakers include Jamie Miller, chief financial officer and operating officer of PayPal; Matt Castonguay, CFO of Team Car Care; and Silvio Savarese, EVP and chief scientist at Salesforce AI Research.
Fortune, in partnership with Workday, convenes this series to support and inspire emerging CFOs and senior finance leaders. You can find out more information and register here.
Leaderboard
Sean Ricker was appointed interim CFO of BigBear.ai (NYSE: BBAI), a data analytics company, effective immediately, succeeding Julie Peffer as CFO. Peffer, who began her tenure in 2022, will be leaving the organization to pursue other opportunities.
Karla Lunan was appointed CFO of E Tech Group, a provider of industrial automation. Lunan will oversee both the finance and human resources teams. Sharon Koenig, who is retiring, will remain with the company through July 3, for a transition period. Lunan has more than 25 years of experience. She has held senior leadership roles at both private and publicly traded companies, including The Tile Shop, MasTec, and Trueline Infrastructure Solutions.
Big Deal
From March to May, the median risk of default increased for most publicly traded U.S. companies, largely due to market turmoil caused by new tariffs and global trade uncertainties. Financial stocks saw the largest jump in default risk, with their median probability rising from 0.4% to 2.3%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence’s RiskGauge model. The scores indicate the typical one-year default risk for public U.S. companies, calculated using their financial data, stock price fluctuations, and broader economic and industry risks.
Going deeper
“Vanishing immigration is the ‘real story’ for the economy and a bigger supply shock than tariffs, analyst says” is a new Fortune report by Jason Ma
From the report: “Protests over ICE raids in the Los Angeles area this weekend highlight the crackdown on undocumented workers at businesses and the overall impact of immigration, legal or otherwise, on the economy. The collapse in immigration represents a bigger negative supply shock than President Donald Trump’s tariffs do, Deutsche Bank said.”
Overheard
“Rounding out each team, we’re going in eyes wide open.”
—Loren Castle, CEO of frozen cookie dough empire Sweet Loren’s, told Fortune in an interview regarding giving a personality test to all prospective hires.