41% of Wall Street employees say they expect a bigger bonus

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Most Wall Streeters are eternally optimistic about their bonuses. World markets may be sputtering, but maybe their firm is hanging in just fine. Or their department – didn’t it get a co-advisor role on that deal nobody remembers back in April?

This mentality may help explain why 41% of Wall Street employees say they expect a bigger bonus this year than in 2010.  Only 30% saw their bonuses headed south, while 21% took the “unch” option and 8% said they don’t expect to get a bonus, according to a survey released today by online recruiting site eFinancialCareers.com.

That’s despite the worrying earnings outlook described in today’s WSJ.

The biggest reason people thought their bonus might be going up: “personal performance,” cited by 45% of survey respondents. On the other side, 75% of people who see bonuses going down this year cite market conditions or firm performance, with only 2% looking at the man or woman in the mirror. (Last year’s eFinancialCareers survey also found a similar split of back-patting/blame.)

Some parts of the financial world are decidedly more upbeat. At hedge funds and other alternative asset managers, 53% saw bonuses rising and 49% at boutique banks agreed. By contrast, only 36% of employees at commercial banks and big investment banks thought bonuses would rise.

There’s more concern about longer term pay trends. Twice as many finance employees saw bonuses going down over the next three years as going up. (46% to 20%). That view – even stronger at large banks like J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs —reversed the view from last year, when a long term increase in bonuses was viewed as more likely by a 34% to 30% margin.

One thing everyone on Wall Street seems to agree upon: they don’t like new regulations. A majority (52%) said the recent Dodd-Frank financial overhaul act “has contributed” to recent Wall Street layoffs, according to the survey. In a separate question about future direction of industry bonuses, more people last year heaped blame on Dodd-Frank (11% versus 17% in 2010).