Recruitment giant warns of turmoil in City jobs market
The miserable state of the City jobs market was underlined yesterday in a worse-than-expected set of results for recruiter Michael Page that sent its shares tumbling eight per cent.
The firm, which has sourced jobs in the City since 1976, admitted that the culling of banking jobs at both large and small institutions is set to hit its business hard, particularly in the UK.
Chief executive Steve Ingham said that growth from the banking sector, which accounts for 10 per cent of gross profit, was slowing in a “challenging” UK market prompted by the “recently announced hiring freezes”.
London is in the midst of a banking jobs bloodbath with HSBC, Credit Suisse and UBS among the firms looking to make hefty savings by cutting or freezing headcounts.
Job vacancies overall in the sector tumbled 11 per cent last month.
However, the recruiter said its Asian business was performing strongly, partly because banks are hiring more in the emerging market economies such as China and India.