Remember those redundant BarCap people? It's ok: they're ok

You may be wondering what happened to the 'several hundred employees' who were separated from BarCap in the height of the summer.

They appear to be doing fine.

According to one of their number, many have been reshuffled into other roles internally. Others have pocketed large payoffs and found alternative employment.

"Everyone's quite happy," he reflects. "A lot of my colleagues took their payoffs and went off to UBS."

It helps that many of BarCap's unwanted were in IT, where hiring persists. UBS is said to be picking people up; so's JPMorgan.

"We're seeing 35% fewer IT jobs coming onto the market this month than the previous month," says the head of IT at one City recruitment firm. "It's getting slower, but it's not completely dead.

"Most of those coming out of BarCap were either junior or in middle management," she adds.

However, BarCap operations exiles may have a less fine time.

"If someone leaves operations they will find it hard to get a new role," says Mike Hartwell at Hartwell Buck recruitment. "A lot of roles are being off-shored or near shored and it will be tricky to find an alternative."

Fortunately, there don't really seem to be many of them. "I haven't actually seen any BarCap operations people hit the market," Hartwell reflects.