Financial companies in Britain (F3BANK) may have shed almost a tenth of their jobs by the end of the first quarter since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., according to a survey by Britain’s biggest business lobby group.
In the fourth quarter, banks, insurers and asset managers probably cut 9,000 jobs, and may shed 11,000 workers in the first three months this year, the survey by the Confederation of British Industry estimated. The new losses would mean that since Lehman’s collapse in 2008, about 101,000 jobs will have been lost in an industry that employs 1.05 million people in the U.K., or about 9.6 percent, the CBI said.
“Most notably, headcount fell in banking; that was the fastest rate of fall,” Ian McCafferty, the confederation’s chief economic adviser, said at a conference with journalists before the research was published.
Job vacancies at London’s financial-services firms fell by 43 percent in December, the biggest drop in two years, a separate survey by recruiter Astbury Marsden showed today.
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German Export Rebound Boosts Economy
German exports (GRBTEXMM) rebounded in November from a slump, helping bolster Europe’s largest economy as the debt crisis clouds growth prospects.
Exports, adjusted for work days and seasonal changes, rose 2.5 percent from October, when they slumped 2.9 percent, the Federal Statistics Office in Wiesbaden said today. Economists forecast a gain of 0.5 percent, the median of 13 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey showed. Imports (GRBTIMMM) declined 0.4 percent from October, when they rose 0.1 percent.
Germany’s economy is cooling after a worsening fiscal crisis prompted governments from Italy to Ireland to toughen budget cuts, pushing the currency union toward a recession. While some exporters have relied on faster-growing markets to boost sales, manufacturing contracted last month and factory orders slumped the most in almost three years in November.
“This has to be seen as a rebound after a strong decline in October,” said Ulrike Rondorf, an economist at Commerzbank AG in Frankfurt. “But of course export growth in Germany has slowed. Companies are confronted with reduced demand.”
The euro was little changed after the report, trading at $1.2725 at 8:05 a.m. in Frankfurt.
The trade surplus widened to 16.2 billion euros ($20.6 billion) from 11.5 billion euros in October, today’s report showed. The surplus in the current account, a measure of all trade including services, was 14.3 billion euros, up from 10 billion euros a month earlier.
