A survey conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research says that the City of London's financial services industry could see a surge in jobs by next year and that these could even match the job numbers during the dot com boom levels. The survey adds that job availability is rising due to a rebound in merger and acquisition activity.
Andrij Halushka, an economist at the CEBR who co-authored the report, says, "Although the stock market has been flat so far this year, activity levels in the City are improving thanks to innovation in areas such as derivatives and a rebound in merger and acquisition work."
The report has forecast that jobs in the city would rise by 4,000 to 320,000 this year and would reach 325,000 in 2006. This will beat the previous peak of 324,000 in 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom. The City of London employment levels had reached a meager 305,000 in 2002 after the Internet stock bubble burst in 2000.
Banks have been cutting jobs, but CEBR says that the City 339,000 jobs by the end of this decade. The CEBR has predicted a good year for corporate finance, "This year we expect it to be more vigorous, with a resulting 1.4 percent jobs growth leading to a total of 13,000 jobs in 2005,” the report said.
The fund management sector has been adding a good number of jobs and the CEBR says that the job growth in this sector this year will be only 1.5 percent, leading to 40,000 jobs due to the setbacks suffered by hedge funds.
Posted
on : Mon, 30 May 2005 16:35 GMT | Business News
By : Anne Philips
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