Economy fears hitting recruitment

Hiring expectations in financial services fell the most

UK employers are set to take on new workers at their slowest rate in six years in the wake of the credit crisis, recruitment firm Manpower has said.

It found that the balance of firms seeking to hire in the next quarter over those planning job cuts had almost halved from the same period in 2007.

Hiring expectations in financial and business services, the best performing sector in recent years, fell the most.

The survey was based on a poll of 2,000 employers and their recruitment plans.

"People are a bit concerned with what they are seeing from the financial market and the outlook for the economy," said Mark Cahill, managing director of Manpower UK.

"Most people are still looking to employ more people. It's just not as high or as optimistic as it has been."

Finance hit

Hiring confidence among employers in finance and business services eased by a "significant" 12 percentage points from the final quarter of this year, Manpower said.

In October, the Centre for Economics and Business Research said that it expected 6,500 City jobs to be lost in 2008, with cutbacks most pronounced in investment banking.

Job losses have already begun to be announced.

Reports on Monday said that German investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort is set to make more than 200 staff redundant, mainly at its largely London-based credit business. Dresdner declined to comment.

Elsewhere, Bank of America said it would cut 3,000 jobs and UBS has shed 1,500 jobs across its investment banking division.

Whilst the number of banking jobs is shrinking, call centre jobs are growing.

Manpower said utilities had the most optimistic hiring intentions for the first three months of 2008 of the sectors it covers, as firms move their call centre operations back to the UK from overseas.