(Yicai) Sept. 5 -- Staff remuneration at China’s 43 listed securities firms plummeted 12 percent in the first six months from a year ago as many brokerages slash salaries to cope with a big drop in business.

Listed brokerages paid their staff CNY74.5 billion (USD10.5 billion) in the six months ended June 30, according to financial information platform Choice, which compiled the data from the brokerages’ semi-annual financial reports.

As the number of initial public offerings drop due to tighter regulations, performance bonuses attached to these activities have pretty much disappeared, staff members in the investment banking departments of big securities firms told Yicai.

Last year's end-of-year bonus was roughly one month’s salary, but neither the distribution date nor the exact amount was disclosed in advance, another insider said.

Eighty percent of the 43 brokerages paid out less in wages in the first half, including the four biggest securities firms, namely China International Capital Corporation, CITIC Securities, China Securities and Huatai Securities.

CITIC Securities still had the biggest payroll at CNY9.8 billion (USD1.3 billion), but this was a 8.9 percent dive year on year. And salaries at the other top three all plummeted more than 10 percent, but stayed above CNY4 billion.

However, six listed brokerages went against the trend to raise salaries. Capital Securities was the most generous, hiking its salary payments 58 percent year on year to CNY510 million (USD71.8 million).

Employee wages are also tumbling. Eighty percent of the 41 listed securities firms with comparable data reported a drop in the average staff member’s salary in the first half, with nine posting a dive of over 20 percent, according to Wind data.

Editor: Kim Taylor