Those researchers at the Centre for Economics and Business Research sure know how to brighten up a wet May, don’t they? Last week, the economic think tank forecast that the number of jobs within the wholesale financial sector in the UK will fall to an average of 255,000 over the course of 2012 – down 9% from 280,000 in 2011 and 28% from a high of 354,000 in 2007. The CEBR had previously estimated that there would be an average of 288,000 jobs in the industry over the course of the year – a slight rise from last year.

Some of those expected job cuts have already been made - last week, HSBC, which employs 52,000 in the UK, said that it has cut 14,000 jobs globally since last year - but many of them have not. It is hard to escape the feeling that we will not be left waiting long.