20,000 Trading Positions To Go In Next 3 Years

Financial News reports that, according to a new report from Kimsey Consulting, 20,000 trading roles will go in North American and Western Europe in the next 3 years from the fall-out of the credit crisis and the further roll-out of electronic trading technologies.

An additional 8,000 trading jobs will be created, however, in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pac during the same period. The report estimates that there are around 500,000 trading jobs spread out around the globe at roughly 65,000 firms.

The Financial Times reports that Kaven Leung, the CEO of Citi's wealth management unit in the Asia Pacific, has said that he expects that the private banking industry in the region is heading for a period of consolidation. Leung told the newspaper that although 'I don't think there will be big lay-offs or redundancies, as wealth is still being created, I think the weak ones (private banks) will get winnowed out'.

Finally, The Financial Times also reports that, according to new figures provided by ReThink Recruitment, a specialist IT recruiting firm, the number of new jobs created in IT at investment banks in the final quarter of last year fell 18% compared to the same period 12 months before. During the final quarter of 2007, 37% of all advertised UK IT jobs were for positions working within investment banks, down from 61%. Although figures are not yet ready for the first-quarter of 2008, they are expected to be much worse, as many investment banks have started to cull IT staff as they rein in costs and put off major IT projects to keep down expenditure. The level of fall-off of IT jobs in the investment banking industry has not been seen since the 2000 bust of the dot.com bubble.