Investment banks cut graduate jobs

ING Barings, JP Morgan and ABN Amro have made some of the biggest cuts. ING Barings is cutting its graduate intake in London from 37 in 2001, to only 16 in 2002.

At JP Morgan, graduate hires in Europe are down from 400 in 2001 to 190 in 2002. The bank says the steep drop is partly attributable to the merger between JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan. The figure for 2001 represents the combined graduate hires of both banks immediately after the merger.

Graduate hiring has also been cut at Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, where numbers are down by some 38% and 30% respectively on last year. Goldman Sachs' 2002 graduate intake is thought to be lower by 30%, although the bank declined to comment.

Among the few banks to increase graduate hiring in 2002 are Bank of America, Barclays Capital and the Royal Bank of Scotland.

This is the first year that Bank of America has run a graduate recruitment programme in Europe. Barclays Capital has benefited from its focus on the relatively strong fixed income sector.The Royal Bank of Scotland is boosting graduate hires to its corporate banking division.

Many banks are already planning for 2003 and there is tentative hope that numbers will be higher.

But this is little consolation for those graduating in 2002. Karen McKinley, head of graduate recruitment at the Royal Bank of Scotland, says: "I'm getting a lot of calls from graduates who are still looking for positions and they are clearly very talented people."