72% of financial services firms intend to recruit in the next three months

The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development quarterly Labour Market Outlook - which the organisation's chief economist John Philpott said indicated "things were getting worse more slowly" - makes little mention of the financial services sector (other than to say "the proportion of the workforce being made redundant will remain highest in the financial, manufacturing and construction sectors").

However, we've managed to procure the data around the 'finance, insurance and real estate' sector, which details firms' hiring intentions over the next quarter.

Here are the (admittedly quite raw) statistics:

· 72% of firms surveyed intend to recruit over the next three months (26% say no, while 2% don't know).

· Of those that will be hiring, 39% intend to take on 18-24 year olds, while 42% will be recruiting 'older workers'.

· The largest percentage (23%) believes recruitment will pick up within their organisation in the next 12 months.

· 34% of firms surveyed intend to make redundancies in the next three months.

· Of those planning to make cuts, the largest proportion (59%) expect this to affect 3-4.99% of the workforce.

· 36% of respondents have contingency plans to make redundancies over the next 12 months, while 51% do not.

· 81% of those surveyed say they have enough people to cope with the economic upturn when it happens.