Thecollapse of 150-year-old investment bank Lehman Brothersa year ago shattered the financial system.
The news that Lehman Brothers had entered administration on 15
September 2008 sent the City into meltdown and took thousands of IT
jobs with it.
The event may not have been the catalyst for the collapse of the
global financial system, but it was the moment people realised the
system was broke. The credit crunch had already caused problems for
US mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had been
bailed out by the US government a week earlier.
IT jobs in decline
Banks are the biggest users of IT, but the economic crisis meant
a previous safe haven for IT professionals became an uncertain
career path. Tens of thousands of
IT professionals worldwide faced redundancy.
PJ Di Giammarino, CEO at financial services think-tank JWG-IT,
told Computer Weekly a year ago that IT workers would be hit
hard by the financial turmoil. "In Europe we estimate that there
are hundreds of thousands of IT workers in the financial services
sector. But there are a bigger number of people affected by
consolidation because it affects all the suppliers to the
industry."
TowerGroup figures show that IT spending by European investment
banks will fall 9% in 2009, compared with 2008. In the US, spending
is predicted to drop 15%.
According to Bob McDowall, analyst at TowerGroup, as many as
300,000 people could have lost their jobs in the financial services
sector globally by the end of 2009, with as many as 25% of that
total drawn from IT professionals.
Japan-based investment bank Nomura, which bought part of Lehman
Brothers said it would cut 1,000 jobs in London as a result of the
integration of the companies.
Job cuts in financial services
September 2008:
January 2009:
May 2009:
See also: