The four largest U.K. banks have eliminated more than 37,000 positions in the 12 months ended in June. That represented more than 5 percent of their workforce. Branthover said she expects reductions to continue, if at a slower pace than Citigroup’s.
“We keep thinking it’s going to get better, but then something else happens,” Branthover said. “Nobody has said the worst is over, but what we see is that every one of our clients that we talk to have a strategy set for 2013 that’s essentially stay flat, replace as needed, only add on in places that are generating revenue.”
Employment in London’s financial-services industry, which is home to the European headquarters of global securities firms, may tumble to a 20-year low in 2013 as a slump in equity and foreign-exchange trading and mergers triggers job losses.
London Outlook
Positions in London’s City and Canary Wharf financial districts may fall to 237,000 in 2013, compared with 256,000 predicted six months ago, the London-based Centre for Economics and Business Research has said. That would be the lowest number since 1993 and down from 354,000 in 2007, the research firm said in November.
“I expect to see the global reduction in headcount in investment banking to continue,” said Tom Kirchmaier, a fellow in the financial-markets group at the London School of Economics. “There has been a structural change in investment banking. The investors don’t want it, the regulators don’t want it. Sales and trading is extremely leveraged and asset quality is going down.”