This is where the number of jobs was up massively in the first quarter

The first quarter is a thing of the past and we're approaching the time of year when front office recruitment tends to taper off, so it may not come as much consolation to learn that hiring was massive in some areas in Q1. But you may as well know that it was.

Our own figures for the three months to 31st April 2011 (thereby rendering them mostly first quarter, partly second quarter) show that the number of jobs posted on eFinancialCareers was up 40% year on year in some areas.

Those areas were as follows:

- Trading

- Derivatives

- Commodities

- Private Equity/Venture Capital

- Equities

The most enormous increase was in equities, where the number of jobs posted on eFinancialCareers rose 150% year on year.

As we've noted recently, equities businesses haven't been so healthy of late, with banks attempting to prune headcount on the back of disappointing volumes.

So what drove the monumental increase in equities jobs? One electronic trading recruiter points to demand for programmers and quants to work on new trading systems. Meanwhile, equity derivatives have been comparatively strong - particularly in the areas of ETFs and Delta One.

Citigroup has just expanded its ETF team with two new senior hires from Deutsche and Morgan Stanley. Last week, Deutsche launched a whole new suite of hedged currency ETFs. And Nomura hired a senior Credit Suisse banker for Delta One.