Where the hiring freezes are. And where the hiring freezes aren't

As we noted earlier, there is a hiring freeze at Morgan Stanley until the end of the year.

There are also hiring freezes elsewhere.

Frozen

After copious calls to recruiters and headhunters in various sectors, it also appears that hiring 'freezes' are in place at each of the following institutions:

· BofA Merrill Lynch

· Nomura

· Credit Suisse

· BarCap

· UBS (equities)

· JPMorgan

· Deutsche (fixed income)

· And most other big banks.

"There will be no more hiring this year," says the head of investment banking at one global search firm. "There is a hiring freeze everywhere, either informal or formal."

However, in terms of hiring, 'freeze' is a relative concept. "A hiring freeze is an concept bandied around by HR," says one consultant. "At the end of the day, if it's a business critical hire, HR are going to be overruled."

Not frozen

There are also some banks, or some areas of banks where hiring is comparatively less frozen and there could be headcount additions before the end of the year. These include:

· SocGen: Still said to want to hire 10+ people in equity research in London and Paris

· BNP Exane: Said to be looking for big name senior equity research hires

· Deutsche: Rumoured to still be hiring in equities

· Scotiabank: Rumoured to be hiring in fixed income

· Lloyds: Rumoured to be hiring in fixed income

· UBS: Rumoured to be hiring in fixed income

· Citigroup: Been doing some crazy hiring in emerging markets.