Another 15,000 jobs in financial services will be lost over the next three months as banks, brokers and fund managers offload staff at the fastest rate in 16 years, the CBI will say today.

The analysis from the leading employers' organisation comes after its accurate prediction in January that about 15,000 financial sector staff would go in the first quarter. With 11,000 financial jobs having gone in the fourth quarter of 2008, the CBI projection would mean that the pace of job losses is accelerating as the recession deepens.

Companies across the sector have been cutting staff heavily. In the past week alone, HSBC announced 1,200 UK job losses, Legal & General said that 650 jobs would go and Man Group, the hedge fund, said that it would cut 270 positions, including in the UK.

The CBI believes that total UK unemployment will hit 2.89 million in the fourth quarter and will exceed three million in the first three months of 2010.

Ian McCafferty, chief economic adviser to the CBI, said: “Conditions remain exceptionally tough in the financial services sector, and have not been helped by equity markets having fallen since our last survey in December. Sharp falls in revenues and profitability are causing continued suffering, while business volumes remain very weak. Firms are making heavy cuts to staff numbers and investment plans to make savings and reflect weak demand.”

He was speaking as the CBI released its latest financial services survey, with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the consultant, for the first three months of the year. The survey found that profits and business volumes at big financial services firms continue to plummet. Companies, particularly banks, have been heavily scaling back investment, including on staff training.

More than half, or 56 per cent, of the 90 organisations that took part said that business volumes had fallen over the period, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of trading declines. Just over a third, or 34 per cent, said that they were less optimistic than they had been at the beginning of the year. Almost half think that financial markets will deteriorate further, while every respondent said that it would be at least six months before normal conditions resumed.

Banks cut jobs at their fastest rate during the first quarter as profits continued to tumble at record levels, according to the survey. Building societies and life insurers experienced the steepest fall in trading volumes since the survey began in 1989, although profits at general insurers actually rebounded during the period as premiums increased, the CBI/PwC found.

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