City job opportunities take a hit amid fears over hard Brexit

London's financial services sector saw new jobs growth slow last month amid growing concerns over Britain's future trading relationship with the EU.

The number of available jobs increased 1% month-on-month in September, the third highest rate this year, but dropped from a 4% rise in August.

The amount of professionals looking for new positions climbed 9% over the period, according to a study by Morgan McKinley.

The recruiter's London Employment Monitor - which focuses on banking, financial services and inner-city jobs - saw the number of available positions fall by 5% in September compared with the same month last year.

The slowdown in employment growth comes amid mounting fears that a so-called "hard Brexit" will spark an exodus of jobs from the City of London.

Hakan Enver, operations director at Morgan McKinley financial services, said it was encouraging to see positive figures from the employment market despite growth easing.

"Clearly there's an ongoing appetite to recruit," he said. "Given the volatility that we have been facing, two months of positive growth is welcome news.

"This time last year we had a 12% drop in job seekers due to the unusually slow start after the summer lull.

"What we're seeing this year is standard operating procedure. Whilst the banking industry has been under scrutiny, it can make candidate decisions to commit to organisations harder."

According to TheCityUK, the cost of a so-called ''hard Brexit'' to revenues in Britain's financial services sector could be as high as £38 billion, with up to 75,000 jobs in the line of fire.

The scenario in which British companies are unable to sell services across the European single market, also see the Treasury lose up to £10 billion in tax revenue.

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