NEW YORK — Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is paying its employees an average of $622,000 this year, after posting the highest profit ever for a securities firm.

The firm set aside $16.5 billion for salaries, bonuses and benefits for its 26,467 employees in the fiscal year ending in November, 40 percent more than it paid out all of last year, according to Goldman's earnings report today. The firm allocated 43.7 percent of its revenue for pay, down from 46.6 percent.

Investment banks benefited this year from rising stock and commodities markets and record share sales and takeovers. Goldman said today full-year profit jumped 70 percent to $9.54 billion, more than the top five firms earned in both 2001 and 2002. Average pay is skewed by the highest earners.

"Everyone who has that big smile when they get their check will also realize that it may not be nearly the same amount next year," said Henry Higdon, who runs New York-based executive recruitment company Higdon Partners LLC. A handful of star bankers and traders will get bonuses worth more than $30 million this year, he said. "The stars don't align very often."

Goldman capped the most profitable year ever for a Wall Street company, almost doubling fourth-quarter earnings on trading, underwriting and investments in Asia.

Net income advanced 93 percent to $3.15 billion, or $6.59 a share, in the three months ended Nov. 24 from $1.63 billion, or $3.35, a year earlier, the New York-based company said yesterday in a statement.

The results mark the third consecutive year of record earnings for Goldman, the world's biggest securities firm by market value.

Chief Financial Officer David Viniar told reporters that the greatest hiring growth this year was in Asia, followed by Europe and the United States.

Goldman's pay per employee in 2005 was the highest of the major New York-based securities firms.

In the U.S., Wall Street employees last year earned $289,664 on average, or 5.1 times as much as other workers in New York City, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi said in October. Financial employees generated $2.1 billion in 2005 tax revenue and each new position filled in the industry creates two additional jobs in the city and one in the suburbs.

Goldman shares dropped $2.52, or 1.2 percent, to $200 yesterday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has climbed 57 percent this year, the most among U.S. securities firms.

Kamehameha Schools, formerly known as Bishop Estate, was a major investor in Goldman Sachs until it sold the last of its stake in 2002. Kamehameha Schools invested $500 million in the investment bank in 1992 and 1994 and sold the shares for more than $2.5 billion for a 400-percent return.