Actually, so far Q3 hasn't been bad at all for City recruitment

If Morgan McKinley's monthly employment monitor is to be believed, fears of a slowdown in the City job market in Q3 have been overplayed - the number of new roles in July is actually up by 7% on June.

According to its reckoning, there were 6,048 new roles in London's financial sector during July, which is up from 5,645 in June and a 71% increase year-on-year. This is the highest number of vacancies since March.

However, despite the higher number of new jobs, the fact that there's now 23% more people looking for work than this time last year - when recruitment was largely stagnant - is not a particularly positive sign.

The number of jobseekers is down 16% month-on-month, however, but this may be due to seasonal factors.

There's also the fact that Morgan McKinley recruits for the whole gamut of financial sector roles - from finance and accountancy, to support and middle office roles as well as, to some extent, front office positions - and much of the recent negative sentiment around recruitment has centred specifically on the investment banking sector.

Similarly, it was only towards the beginning of August, following Q2 results from UK banks, that real concerns over rising costs coupled with slumping revenues were raised. Subsequently, both BarCap and Credit Suisse have pared back staff numbers.

"The increase in recruitment levels at the start of July is a good indication that institutions will continue to recruit, although we are expecting fluctuations in hiring levels over the remainder of the year," said Andrew Evans, managing director, Morgan McKinley Financial Services.