6,500 Financial Jobs To Be Axed In London By 2008 Due Primarily To Credit Crunch

London, England (AHN) - As many as 6,500 people, most of them financial professionals, will lose their jobs in London over the next year due to market turmoil due to the credit crunch.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research forecasts there will be about 2,000 job cuts in the city by Christmas.

However, about 11,000 jobs were created in 2007 taking the number of registered jobs to the record high of 349,100 this month, CEBR said.

According to CEBR, most of the job cuts happen in private equity, mergers and acquisitions, hedge funds and structured finance units. The investing banks alone will have job cuts about 2,300.

The financial sector cut more than 15,000 jobs in the city during 2001 to 2002.

"What we are likely to see as we enter 2008 is a reduction of almost one for every two jobs added this year," said Sarah Bloomfield who has contributed to the report.

The CEBR predicts the job loss will continue till 2009.