NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — Leverage is back on Wall Street — and this time it's the bankers who have it.

Firms are adding jobs for the first time in two years, rebuilding businesses cut during the financial crisis and offering guaranteed payouts to lure top bankers. In New York, 6,800 financial-industry positions were added from the end of February through May, the largest three-month increase since 2008, according to the New York State Department of Labor.

Morgan Stanley and Citigroup Inc. are among banks that are hiring to replenish their ranks, while Nomura Holdings Inc. and Jefferies Group Inc. have been recruiting talent from larger firms in a bid to increase their standing on Wall Street.

"Candidates are now getting multiple offers, and companies risk losing their desired candidates if they don't act quickly enough — and that's a real change," said Constance Melrose, managing director of eFinancialCareers North America, which has seen a 75 percent rise in investment banking jobs posted on its website from a year earlier.

The removal of uncertainty regarding Congress's financial reform bill may reinforce the hiring rebound. A deal reached by members of a House and Senate conference last week diluted provisions from the tougher Senate bill, limiting rather than prohibiting the ability of federally insured banks to trade derivatives and invest in hedge funds or private-equity funds.

Five of the largest banks on Wall Street — Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley — increased their total head count in the first quarter, the first three-month jump since the start of 2009, when Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch & Co. The five banks posted combined net income of $16.2 billion in the first quarter, and three reported record fixed-income trading revenue. It was the highest combined profit for the banks since the second quarter of 2007.

New York City had 429,000 financial jobs as of May 31, up from 422,200 in February, according to the Department of Labor data. That's still down from the peak of 473,800 in August 2007, the data show.

"The overall mood on Wall Street is significantly better than it was last year," said Richard Lipstein, a managing director at Boyden Global Executive Search Ltd. in New York. "Hiring comes down to what products are increasingly active, and there has been some pent-up demand for people, and that demand follows increased optimism."

Firms are paying 30 percent to 40 percent more than what employees are expecting to earn to lure them from other banks this year, according to an April report from Options Group, a New York-based executive search and compensation consulting company. Equity derivatives and commodities trading are two of the fastest-growing areas, the report said.