The City has slowed down for the end of the year and the start of the Brexit battles, according to new research.
The latest London Employment Monitor for November 2018 has recorded a 4 per cent decrease in jobs available, month-on-month as well as a 39 per cent reduction in jobs available, year-on-year.
It also highlighted a 14 per cent decrease in professionals seeking jobs, month-on-month and a 28 per cent fall in professionals seeking jobs, year-on-year.
Interestingly, the average salary change for November was 21 per cent.
Hakan Enver, managing director of Morgan McKinley, said the annual holiday season slow down coincides with the looming Brexit deadline, which will determine who can and who cannot work in Britain.
He said: "In November of 2017 jobs were up by 5 per cent from the previous month, and only down by 3 per cent from the previous year.
"Brexit has taken a considerable bite out of banking jobs and with an ambiguous Brexit deal on the table, the City's bracing for more pain ahead.
"It has been a year of peaks and troughs for job seekers. When you balance it out over the course of the year, however, it is a relatively flat trend. We are ending the year very much where we began."
Mr Enver hit out at the Parliament vote on the Brexit deal, which was due to take place today (December 11) but has now been called off by prime minister Theresa May after huge opposition from her own MPs.
Mr Enver said that he was shocked to note that the original proposal, which is now been renegotiated, was notably light on details pertaining to the future of the financial services industry.
He said: "It is stunning to see that in a 585-page plan for Britain's future, an industry that contributes £119bn a year to the economy barely gets a mention."
As Mrs May returns to Brussels to renegotiate a better Brexit deal, Mr Enver said ambitious professionals across the globe will look to London for career advancement opportunities and growth - a scenario that is unlikely to change in a post-Brexit UK.
However, he said that financial services employers are anxiously awaiting signs from political leaders that they intend to ease the process of visas for highly skilled individuals worldwide.
He said: "If visa regulations aren't modernised, the government will shrink the City's talent pool, effectively shrinking the economy."
Commenting on the attitudes of financial services employers in the lead-up to Brexit, Gemma Siddle, chartered financial planner for Newton Aycliffe-based Eldon Financial Planning, said she saw uncertainty.
Ms Siddle said: "It is natural for businesses and individuals to be cautious at a time when uncertainty is rife.
"However, uncertainty always comes with opportunity attached and those that thrive are those that make the best of the situation they are in."
aamina.zafar@ft.com
