The credit crisis could lead to almost 20,000 job losses in London’s financial-services industry over the next two years, more than were cut in the dot-com crash, the Center for Economic and Business Research Ltd (CEBR) said.
The number of jobs in the industry may drop to 342,000 this year and 334,000 next year, compared with 351,000 last year, CEBR said in a report published yesterday. Employment in London’s financial services may not return to last year’s level until 2012, the report said.
More than 15,000 jobs were lost in the collapse of the dot-com bubble in 2000, the report said.
Corporate finance, investment banking and derivatives will be the most severely affected, CEBR said. The increase in credit costs in the wake of the collapse of the US subprime mortgage market has curbed the pace of takeovers. The value of announced deals has dropped 33 percent this year to US$778 billion from a record last year, Bloomberg data showed.
“The credit crunch has made it more difficult for banks to secure funds and activity in profitable sectors like mergers and acquisitions has ground to a halt,” CEBR economist Richard Snook said. “Substantial job losses are inevitable.”
Citigroup Inc and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc are cutting jobs after writedowns and subprime mortgage-related losses worldwide rose to more than US$245 billion. Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc, the second-biggest lender in the UK, is eliminating about 200 jobs at its corporate-banking unit because of the credit crisis, people with knowledge of the plan said last week.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Xinyi A13 Department Store last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined at
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)