‘Bloodbath’ as banks set to axe 350,000 jobs

That is double the number of people who have already lost their jobs since the financial crisis led to frozen credit markets.

Banks are slashing back staff numbers around the world amid trillions of dollars in losses.

Executive search firm CTPartners says the job losses will amount to some 20% of the global workforce before the financial crisis hit.

"This is the financial equivalent of World War Two," Brian Sullivan, chief executive of CTPartners, told Bloom-berg. "It's unprecedented. You're seeing a seismic shift in the population of banking."

Sullivan says that his firm is shifting its focus from banking to industries such as pharmaceuticals and clean energy as demand for finance professionals dries up.

He claimed that the meltdown would set the financial services industry back decades.

"Without the massive leverage that's been in the system, the business of some of these big investment banks simply isn't going to be there," he said. "You'll go back to theinvestment banks of the 1960s and 70s."

The new climate will be unlikely to lead to a return of Wall Street's swashbuckling days as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have converted themselves into banks and are therefore unable to take the same risks as before.

Sullivan says their profitability will inevitably take a hit.

He says a reduction in big trading bets is particularly bad for the mathematical engineers, so-called "quants", who designed the exotic derivatives that have driven the market over a cliff.

Their skills at devising computer-driven trading strategies allowed them to write their own pay cheques before the crisis but now Sullivan says jobs in the field will be hard to find.

Citigroup this week became the latest to announce swingeing cuts in its workforce. The embattled global lender will cut 52,000 jobs in the next year after losing almost $20 billion (£13.49 billion) in the past four quarters.

Meanwhile, JPMorgan Chase is this week considering another 10% cut in its investment banking staff - about 3000 jobs - and Bank of New York Mellon said it plans to axe about 4% of its workforce, or 1800 people.

Deutsche Bank will shed about 900 jobs in its global markets division, mostly in London and New York.