Financial Fallout Will Impact New Jersey

JERSEY CITY-The most recent turmoil in Manhattan—Lehman’s demise , the Merrill Lynch/Bank of America merger and the AIG bailout —have roiled markets all over the world, and according to experts, the results are likely to be very seriously felt close to home.

“New Jersey has significant exposure” to this crisis, says Dr. James Hughes, dean of the Edward Bloustein School for Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. “The Hudson River waterfront is Wall Street West, and we have some other operations like Merrill Lynch in Hopewell, which has thousands of employees. We have a lot of direct exposure in that we have a way above average number of jobs in the major financial units, both here in New Jersey and in Manhattan.”

More than 3,000 people work for Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch in Jersey City, which attracted a number of major financial companies after September 11. Merrill Lynch’s presence in the city is so large that 101 Hudson St., Jersey City’s second tallest building and site of the company’s headquarters, has been nicknamed the Merrill Lynch Building. In all of New Jersey, almost 270,000 people work in the financial sector, according to the Department of Labor statistics.