City vacancies fall 18% in October

The number of new City job vacancies has dropped 18% over the last month says Astbury Marsden, a leading financial services recruitment firm.

According to Astbury Marsden, approximately 3,160 City jobs were created in October 2011, down from 3,840 in September 2011.

Mark Cameron, Chief Operating Officer at Astbury Marsden, says: “With the end of the Eurozone crisis being postponed employers seem to be ending 2011 still in cost-cutting mode.”

According to Astbury Marsden, approximately 14,390 City workers were looking for a new job in October 2011, a 48% jump on the 9,750 who were looking in the same time last year. Astbury Marsden says that figure excludes the impact of MF Global.

Astbury Marsden says that this surge in the number of employees looking for new roles is partly caused by recent redundancies and partly by an increase in bankers with jobs doing contingency planning.

Explains Mark Cameron: “A lot of bankers and fund managers are concerned over what their future prospects are and whether there is a commitment by their employer to the area of the bank they work in. These people are now beginning to window shop.”

“Normally bankers want to change jobs because they want to progress their career or increase their income. At the moment we are seeing a lot of approaches from bankers who just want to maintain their incomes.”

“During periods when the bigger banks are cutting jobs most employees sit tight and wait for the storm to pass but an increasing number of bankers are wondering whether it is worth the risk of jumping ship. They will be conscious of the fact that there aren’t a huge number of jobs for them to switch into.”

“Employers try to deal with these morale issues by paying their staff a lot more attention and promising to take care of them but those line managers also want to avoid overpromising.”

IT candidate registrations jumps 30% month on month

Astbury Marsden says that one area where cost-cutting can be more closely linked to a recent increase in candidate numbers is amongst IT contractors at investment banks.

Downward pressure on contract rates at some investment banks has led to a 30% increase in IT contractors looking for jobs in the last month.

Explains Mark Cameron: “We were surprised to see such a big jump in IT registrations and many of those that have approached us are contractors who have some way to run on their current contract.”

“Whether they find those alternative jobs depends on how much further the cutting has to go. A recent report from the CEBR suggests that City employment is already down to 1998 levels.”

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