Disappointing news for Harley-Davidson salesmen and providers of cordon bleu master classes – the number of City bankers facing redundancy is shrinking, with estimates of job losses in the wholesale financial services sector falling by 15 per cent in six months. The Centre for Economics and Business Research, a consultancy, now reckons 29,000 bankers will slink off clutching black bin bags this year, down from its October estimate of 34,000.

Even that figure will mean a hefty 10 per cent of those in wholesale finance will lose their jobs this year – on top of the 28,000 scythed down in 2008 – in spite of some stabilisation of financial markets. Peak to trough, ranks will be thinned by 16 per cent, to 295,000, down from a high of 353,000 in 2007. This is about twice the estimated peak-to-trough fall in UK gross domestic product. A decade of job creation in the sector will be reversed in just 24 months.