Finance sector severance

Bank severance follows a tighter, more documented pattern than tech. The non-executive formula across the major US institutions is close to identical — roughly 2 weeks of base pay plus 2 weeks per completed year of service — but the ceilings and the equity rules diverge sharply, and that is where the real money sits.

JPMorgan Chase publishes the cleanest version: 2 plus 2, hard-capped at the lesser of 52 weeks of pay or $400,000. Goldman Sachs runs two parallel regimes — a formula track for analysts through vice-presidents that mirrors the JPMorgan structure, and individually negotiated separations for managing directors and partners where reported cash spans run six to twenty-four months and counsel moves the number by 15 to 40 percent. The deferred-compensation and RSU treatment turns on 'good leaver' status: separated through a workforce reduction, unvested awards typically continue vesting on their original schedule; separated for cause or in breach of a non-compete, they forfeit. For non-executive staff the base is largely fixed, and negotiation concentrates on extended COBRA, specific RSU tranches, non-compete scope, and release language.