New City jobs treble, but it's still a long way from boom

The number of new City jobs trebled last month but only against December's count which was the lowest since the financial crisis began in 2008.

According to recruiter Astbury Marsden, there were approximately 2,509 new City jobs created in January 2013, up from just 802 jobs in December 2012. In the boom, before the Lehman Brothers collapsed, about 13,000 jobs a month were being created.

Mark Cameron, chief operating officer at Astbury Marsden, says: "The City jobs market has bounced back – but that rebound is from absolute rock bottom in December. We are still far from having turned the corner."

Mr Cameron blamed the lack of new jobs on politicians and regulators. "The amount of capital investment banks now have to maintain on their balance sheets makes them much less profitable and that means huge job cuts," he said. "In fact, so damaging have those attacks on banks been to job creation, there are signs regulators are easing off slightly."

He said that although America's avoiding the fiscal cliff, Greece's continuance in the eurozone and the FTSE 100's 34-year-beating January performance were all good news for the City, it would take time for this to translate into an upturn in City employment. He said: "M&A activity and equity issuance through IPOs is still very low. For the jobs market to recover the investment banks need to be firing on more cylinders."