So who's NOT hiring graduates this year?

We'll resist the urge to say 'we told you so', but sadly it looks like the worst of our fears have come to pass: quite a few investment banks appear to have filled the tastiest places on their graduate programmes with interns from last summer.

Here's the situation at a few of the top houses, as far as we've been informed/can tell:

Morgan Stanley

Hasn't opened its full-time hiring process yet, but says most of its places have been filled by summer interns. "We'll invite applications to our full-time openings when we have full-time openings available," says head of graduate recruitment Stephanie Ahrens. "First of all, we're trying to finalise the conversion process with our summer interns."

Once interns have received and accepted/declined full-time offers, Ahrens says full-time postings will be advertised on the bank's student site. However, she cautions that they will be "specific to particular desks, divisions and countries".

Lehman

It's not immediately obvious from the bank's website what's going on with its graduate hiring, but things weren't looking great even before Lehman tanked. A few days before the event, head of graduate recruitment Malcolm Horton said there would be "very little broad generalist need" for full-time analysts in 2009. Like Morgan Stanley, it sounded as if Lehman would focus on filling gaps rather than hiring wholesale. "We may have specific language needs or decide we need juniors who are particularly quant or sales focused," Horton added.

Merrill Lynch

Merrill still appears to have places across a number of front-office divisions. The bank's graduate careers site suggests that in London it's looking for students to join full time in 2009 in sales, trading and structuring, capital markets, corporate finance and IT.

Dresdner Kleinwort

Dresdner's graduate hiring programme has been shut down following the news that Commerzbank's taking it over.

Deutsche Bank

Deutsche's London openings are limited. The bank's student website says it's open to full-time analyst applications for various support functions, but not for investment banking (M&A/corporate finance) or markets (ie, sales and trading). Recruiters say the bank is engaged in "graduate headhunting" for candidates with specific skills to fill positions globally - and is looking for next year's interns.

JPMorgan

We haven't spoken to anyone at JPMorgan, but their website suggests they're not hiring graduates in the UK for full-time markets roles. The good news is that they do appear to be hiring for various asset management positions and investment banking - as well as finance (accounting), operations and technology.

UBS

UBS's website shows that it's hiring full-time analysts in London for investment banking (ie, M&A/corporate finance), risk, HR, IT and into the COO's office. Like Deutsche and JPMorgan, it doesn't appear to be hiring for markets roles. Head of graduate recruitment Caroline Baker says UBS is recruiting full-time analysts and will be on campus. Promisingly, she expects that 30% of the bank's full-time positions for 2009 will still be available after places have been allocated to last summer's interns.