London - London's jobs market was dealt a further blow on Tuesday as global investment bank Nomura said it planned to close some of its European businesses, which will lead to the loss of up to 600 jobs, many of them in London.
Credit: REUTERS
A man is reflected in a window outside a Nomura office in Tokyo, Japan. File picture: Yuriko NakaoThe Tokyo-based firm, which employs nearly 3 500 people in Europe, plans to close equity research, sales, derivatives and underwriting operations for European shares with more details set to be revealed next month.
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The operations were inherited when it snapped up Lehman Brothers' London operations after the US bank collapsed in 2008, triggering the global financial meltdown.
A drastic slowdown in the economy, poor corporate earnings and nervousness about the EU referendum has sparked fears of a return to that period, sending a chill through the jobs sector.
Bankers looking to jump to more lucrative roles after the traditional bonus season in February have shelved their plans, according to recruiter Morgan McKinley, with many choosing to stay put.
“The news about lower growth, lower M&A activity and reduced profits is feeding into a general atmosphere of nervousness and jobseekers' desire to look for new opportunities,” Morgan's Hakan Enver said. London jobseekers fell by a quarter in March from February, down to 12,998 from 17,219, while the number of jobs on offer also fell by a fifth to 7,215 from 8,325.
US banks like JPMorgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citi are set to report quarterly numbers this week, with analysts forecasting one of the worst earnings seasons in recent years due to losses made from bad loans in the commodity sector. The bleak mood was underscored by results from jobs firm Michael Page yesterday, which said UK profit growth last quarter was zero compared with 2.1 percent last quarter and 12.5 percent in the quarter before.
Chief executive Steve Ingham said companies were increasingly looking to hire temporary staff instead of permanent hires because of nervousness about the future.
THE INDEPENDENT