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Global toll rises to 47,000 as more London jobs lost
Bill Condie, Evening Standard25.04.08
The worldwide bloodletting of finance jobs has hit 47,000, with Mizuho Financial the latest to wield the axe in London.
Analysis of job losses in the past 10 months suggests the toll on banking workforces is likely to top the 100,000 cuts brought in between 2001 and 2003 during the downturn after the dot-com bubble burst.
JPMorgan analysts estimate 40,000 London banking jobs will go as a result of the current crisis. The research came as more than 100 in the City were facing the axe today at Japanese bank Mizuho, which plans to close its London securitisation business.
A spokesman for Mizuho Financial Group (MFG) in Tokyo said Mizuho employs 480 people in London. He declined to comment on precise numbers of those being "eliminated" but reports in Tokyo suggested almost one in four would be out of a job.
"We have to dismiss the team that creates securitisation products," spokesman Toshimitsu Okano said. "Under these market conditions, we won't be able to continue the business."
MFG, Japan's second-biggest bank by revenue, has lost $5.5 billion (£2.78 billion) on mortgage securities and plans to dramatically scale back its global operations in that business.
UBS is laying off 900 staff in London, Merrill Lynch is expected to shed 350 and Credit Suisse about 150. Bear Stearns is about to start notifying swathes of its staff about their future with the company following its collapse into the arms of JPMorgan. Analysts say Asia, where support functions such as compliance and legal are based, appears to be bearing the brunt of the cuts.
Between 7000 and 10,000 Bear Stearns staff are likely to lose their jobs. Knock-on effects are being felt by companies that support banks and brokerages. Fitch Ratings, which analyses the credit risk of bank products, today said up to 200 of its 2100 global workforce could go.
The 47,000 running total of global redundancies was collated by City web-site hereisthecity.com. It shows how the toll has come from firms as big as Citigroup, which last week said it would shed a further 9000 posts worldwide, to Henderson Global Investors and Jefferies & Co, which have axed 45 and 100 staff respectively.
Merrill Lynch has started its latest cull in London, shedding a number of energy traders and putting many other employees on notice about the danger of redundancy, triggering the 90-day process required when laying off workers.
Mizuho will completely withdraw from the London market in creating securitised products, where it has operated as Mizuho International, its City-based securities and investment banking brand.
It this month it reported a 50% drop in full-year profit after posting the $5.5 billion on mortgage securities, the most notched up by an Asian company.
The worldwide cull so far:
Citi - 9000
Merrill Lynch - 5,600
Lehman Brothers - 4,990
Bank of America - 3,650
Morgan Stanley - 2,960
UBS - 2,000 (an additional 2,200 cuts are now thought likely)
Goldman Sachs - 2,000 (rumours abound that up to 15% of the firm's capital markets staff are now to be axed)
HSBC - 1,800
Bear Stearns - 1,550 (between 7,000 - 10,000 of the firm's staff are thought likely to go following the proposed merger with JPMorgan).
WestLB - 1,530
Credit Suisse - 1,350
Wachovia - 1,100
Deutsche Bank - 700
Royal Bank of Canada - 510
Royal Bank of Scotland - 500
Fortis - 490 ( most of these are in asset management and came as a result of the ABN AMRO deal)
Dresdner Kleinwort - 300 ( 150 more cuts are said to be on the way)
ABN AMRO - 200
Moody's Investor Services - 180
Fidelity International - 170
BNP Paribas - 150
Fitch Ratings - 130
JPMorgan - 120 (some additional job cuts are very likely due to the impending acquisition of Bear Stearns)
SG Corporate & Investment Banking - 110
Jefferies & Co - 100
Henderson Global Investors - 45
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Just waiting for the panic, when unemployment sky-rockets in say six months time.
Brown will have his legacy...captain Mcalamity.
- Antony Graham, Southport England
Well, isn't it a good thing that we have such "sound economic fundamentals" in this country. With our low unemployment rates, anyone laid off should pick up a new job just like that. Nothing to see here, move along, please. No chance of recession, everything's fine, don't anyone panic. Please.
- Andrews, Cumbria
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