With the days of prosperity over and financial executives getting pink-slipped left and right, employers are increasingly finding they can call the shots on aspiring (er, bowing and scraping) job applicants. But just how much are salaries actually falling these days on Wall Street? That’s a subject of rigorous debate, but this survey could provide the best indication yet of just how much leeway a banker has in putting the screws to the boss.

Pay packages in the financial services industry are likely to drop by as much as 20 percent this year as companies adapt to the credit crisis, according to a survey of recruiters.

The survey of 10 recruiters in the U.S. and 10 in the U.K. found that one-third expect compensation to drop between 16 percent and 20 percent, while almost one-third predict pay will fall by between 5 percent and 10 percent. The survey was conducted in April by The Smart Cube, a five year-old company that supplies research and analysis to the financial services industry.

"As a result of this downturn, we're seeing this as clearly a buyers' market -- employers are increasingly calling the shots," said Omer Abdullah, a co-founder of The Smart Cube who oversaw the survey. "Candidates are more cautious in terms of what they ask employers for."

Last year, the five biggest U.S. securities firms awarded employees a record $65.6 billion in compensation and benefits, including about $39 billion in bonuses. So far this year, the smallest of the five, Bear Stearns Cos., has been taken over by JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the other four, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch & Co. and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., set aside smaller amounts to pay employees in the first quarter as revenue tumbled.

Financial companies have cut more than 83,000 jobs worldwide in the last year as they grapple with losses from debt products and a slowdown in investment banking, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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