Australian bankers leave Wall Street for Sydney amid coronavirus

The pandemic is pushing more Australian workers, including bankers, to return home

Observers say Australia has been a net exporter of banking talent, but new opportunities in the Covid-19 era is reversing that trend

Reading Time:4 minutes

Australia saw about 25,000 citizens returning last year. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 10:54am, 17 May 2021Updated: 10:54am, 17 May 2021

Catherine McCormack, 39, is trading a plum job at Goldman Sachs in New York for a finance job – in Australia.

That might seem like a career-killer, but McCormack says the pros outweigh the cons in a world still crippled by the lasting impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

She is not alone – for the first time since World War II, more Australians are returning home than leaving. The rough count last year: 25,000.

The pandemic has people everywhere rethinking life and work. But few are journeying home quite like Australians, a famously peripatetic crew that for decades has cut a swathe through business and finance around the world.

They are arriving in a country where Covid-19 cases are rare enough that each is discussed and dissected individually.

At a time when Singapore is again locking down, and New York City is emerging tentatively from the ravages of a virus that took some 33,000 lives, Sydney’s bars and restaurants are mostly operating like it’s 2019, and the hit Broadway musical Hamilton is playing to its only live audience in the world.

Catherine McCormack traded a job in New York for one in Sydney. Photo: Bloomberg

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