Industry

With investment banking and trading being two of the areas hardest hit within the 160,000 financial services jobs lost around the world, many analysts will find themselves unemployed as well, the International Herald Tribune reports.

Reserve Funds has hired Joseph T. Monagle, Jr. to help the firm sell positions in a difficult debt and credit market.

Because it takes about six months to a year for executive search firms to catch up with the general labor market, a number of recruiters that specialize in financial services are likely to cut their staffs early next year, Dow Jones reports.

BlackRock will be eliminating a number of positions among its 5,500 ranks, Bloomberg reports, quoting an internal memo it obtained. It will be the first time in its 20 years of existence that it has eliminated jobs.

Stressing that the reorganization is not motivated by the financial crisis but a strong desire to improve accountability and, with that, performance, Putnam Chief Executive Officer Robert Reynolds announced Monday that the firm is doing away with team-managed equity mutual funds. Instead, those funds will be run by single portfolio managers.

Upon laying off 1,300 people last week, Fidelity Investments indicated that another 1,700 will lose their jobs in the first quarter of 2009, bringing the tally of layoffs to 3,000, or 7% of the workforce.

Bank of New York Mellon Division Hires Murphy

Referring to today’s stock and corporate prices as bargain basement, the chief executive officer of Aberdeen Asset Management of the U.K. said he is interested in purchasing other companies, particularly hedge funds-of-funds and private equity firms, Reuters reports.

Of the 130,000 jobs that have been lost at financial services firms since the middle of last year, most have been at banks and brokerage firms. Mutual fund companies, so far, have held up because they’ve been buttressed by ongoing fees from customers retirement savings. In 2007, fund companies lost only 1.6% of their workforce, or 2,723 jobs.

American Century this week will inform 17% of its workforce, or 270 employees, that they are being let go due to the aftershocks of the credit crisis, declining assets due to redemptions and falling stock prices, and declining investor confidence and a weakening economy.