Bear Stearns cut 300 jobs today, bringing to more than 4,600 the number of jobs culled in the past few days by banks reeling from the summer's credit crunch.

Earlier today Credit Suisse announced 170 job losses, in addition to 150 announced last week.

UBS announced this week that it was cutting 1,500 jobs after it reported a third-quarter loss caused by the credit crunch.

Lehman Brothers cut 2,050 jobs in the wake of the crisis, and Morgan Stanley announced 600 job losses on Monday.

Bear Stearns announced that it would cut mortgage workers. This is in addition to the 240 sub-prime jobs cut in August.

The investment bank has taken a battering after losses at two of its hedge funds.

That dealt a blow to the company’s reputation and prompted some hedge fund customers to move some of their assets to rivals.

Bear Stearns shares fell $1.48, or 1.2 per cent, to $127.09 (£62) in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Half of the Credit Suisse cuts come in its fixed-income division and the remainder are performance-related.

The 150 redundancies announced last week were mainly in its mortgage-backed securities department.

Soon after the announcement, Credit Suisse said that it expected the fallout from the sub-prime crisis to last for up to 18 months.

At a lecture in London, Brady Dougan, the chief executive, said that he expected the mortgage market to remain problematic for between six to 18 months.

A spokeswoman said: “In line with the current market environment, we have made targeted reductions to adjust our capacity to meet diminished client demand.”

It is understood that most of the losses will be in the bank’s American operation.

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