City jobs were down 77% on the boom years in 2012
The number of job vacancies in the City last year was just 23% of the total available in the boom years of 2007, and nearly 19,000 down on 2011, according to recruiters Astbury Marsden.
Its much-followed monthly City recruitment review shows a bleak 2012 for the London financial job market, with just 35,115 new jobs throughout the entire year – or a 35% decline on 2011.
Mark Cameron, chief operating officer at Astbury Marsden, says that investment banks’ cost-cutting in 2012 was “particularly significant” with “major structural changes including winding down entire units”.
Considering the fact that there were huge redundancy announcements last year – 10,000 cuts at UBS and 11,000 at Citigroup in December – and 40,000 job cuts in investment banking alone, the results of Astbury Marsden’s survey are not surprising.
Few recruiters are particularly optimistic about prospects for 2013 – with risk, regulation, compliance and technology cited as potential pockets of activity, while front office recruitment remains in the doldrums.
The year-on-year decline for jobs in December looks particularly bad, according to Astbury Marsden’s figures, with a 47% slump on 2011 to just 800 new City jobs.
Our own figures suggest a slightly less bleak prognosis. UK jobs advertised on eFinancialCareers were down 28% year-on-year, compared to a 25% decline globally. In APAC there was a 25% decline, versus 19% in the US and 23% in Central Europe and the Middle East.
