Global finance jobs cull hits 47,000

Japan’s Mizuho Financial Group (MFG) is the latest financial institution to make job cuts after it announced plans to completely withdraw from the London market in creating securitised products.

Earlier this month, MFG posted a 50% fall in full-year profit after posting the $5.5bn on mortgage securities, the highest by an Asian company.

A spokesperson Mizuho Financial Group (MFG) in Tokyo said the company employs 480 people in London. The spokesperson declined to comment on exact numbers of those being eliminated, however, reports suggested nearly one quarter would be made redundant.

A study of redundancies in the last 10 months indicate that the loss of finance jobs has reached 47,000.

Analysts at JPMorgan estimate 40,000 London banking jobs will be axed as a consequence of the ongoing credit squeeze.

Investment bank UBS announced last week it was to lay off 900 staff in London, Merrill Lynch said it would be laying off 350 while Swiss bank Credit Suisse said around 150 jobs would go.

Bear Stearns is expected to inform its workforce about their fate after its near collapse and takeover by JPMorgan. It is expected between 7000 and 10,000 Bear Stearns staff will lose their jobs.

Fitch Ratings, which analyses the credit risk of bank products, said 200 of its 2100 global workforce could go.

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