Financial services recruitment is experiencing “extremely difficult” conditions due to the recession, according to a new survey.

The survey, from banking and finance recruiter Morgan McKinley, shows that there were 64% fewer new job vacancies created in financial services last month than in January 2008.

The survey also shows that candidate numbers followed the annual trend of a new year increase, up 32% compared with December 2008 figures, though there was a 40% drop in the number of new candidates.

The average City salary during the month fell by 6% compared with a year ago (January 2008) to £49,983

Those financial services professionals who did find a new job during January took an average of 80.9 days to do so, almost three weeks longer than it took their counterparts in 2008.

There were signs of new year hiring budgets being  implemented by some of London’s financial services institutions, with the number of new job opportunities coming onto the market increasing by 59% on December.
 
Andrew Evans, managing director of Morgan McKinley, says: “Traditionally, we would expect job numbers to increase in January as new hiring budgets are signed off and businesses begin implementing their 2009 headcount plans.

“Given the extremely difficult situation that London’s financial services jobs market faces, it is quite significant that this uplift in new job vacancies actually occurred this year. However, the reality is that there were still considerably fewer new job vacancies available in January compared with a year ago.

“On the candidate side, we would also expect to see a large spike in individuals entering the job market in the new year. While this month on month increase did occur, there were fewer financial services professionals who began their search for a new job opportunity in January compared to a year ago.”