NEW YORK - NEW York Stock Exchange (NYSE) member firms wracked up their biggest losses in 30 years in the 12 months ended Sept 30, 2008, a City Council report said on Monday.

The NYSE member firms, which the council monitors because they are a key driver of the city's economy, lost US$41 billion (S$62.5 billion) in the 12-month period, said the report.

'In the 30 years that Council Finance has data for the industry, we have no period with losses even one-10th of that size,' said the report.

Wall Street's role of creating and selling financial assets is 'broken', the report by the Democratic-led Council said.

'Important parts of the industry will have to be reinvented. How and when this happens is an open question,' it said.

Wall Street's previous worst slump was in 1987, when exchange member firms lost US$2.3 billion in the fourth quarter, which included the Oct 19, 1987, meltdown known as Black Monday.

For the 12-month period from the 1987 fourth quarter through the 1988 third quarter, which included the nearly 23 per cent swoon suffered by the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Black Monday exchange members lost US$327 million.

The report found that Wall Street revenues will not start to recover until the second half of next year, while employment will not start to show growth until the following spring.

'Between reduced bonuses and falling levels of employment, wages paid in the securities industry will fall 16.5 per cent in 2009, a greater reduction than in 2002,' the report said.

The 2002 downturn followed the bursting of the Internet bubble and the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has already said it will be several years before banks and brokerages owe any taxes because their losses will offset any profit they make.

The Council is expecting the securities industry to lose about 35,000 jobs, in line with the previous recession.

The estimate is similar to a forecast made recently by Mr Bloomberg, although the Council says the entire city will lose 112,000 jobs, below the mayor's prediction of 147,000 job losses.

The average Wall Street employee earned US$379,000 last year.

The financial services industry and the spending of its workers helps create service jobs in areas from shops to law firms.

New York City's economy shares Wall Street's boom and bust cycles because it pays about 23 per cent of all wages in the city, although its workforce is only about 180,000 people - just a fraction of the more than 3 million city dwellers who are active in the workplace.

Fiscal monitors have already said that Wall Street's total bonuses will be halved to US$16 billion - and that was before Monday, when Citigroup announced 52,000 layoffs and Goldman Sachs top executives eschewed bonuses.

The profit drought on Wall Street will damage Manhattan's real estate sector, the Council said, citing rising office vacancy rates and other indicators. Property values are phased in gradually on the tax rolls, which should offset some weakness.

Still, the pace of real estate deals has slowed markedly, and that will hurt tax revenues. Taxes paid when properties change hands are expected to drop more than 28 per cent in the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30, the Council said.