Threat of jobs exodus is lifted as exports boom
BANKS have backtracked on their threat to shift jobs to Europe and more British firms are exporting, figures showed yesterday.
Project Fear predictions that Brexit would fuel a jobs exodus from the City of London and trade would suffer have once again proved groundless.
Banks are still making plans for potential changes in their operations after Brexit in March 2019 but now expect to move far fewer jobs from London in the run-up to exit day and immediately afterwards.
Analysis by the Financial Times, based on interviews with financial institutions, concluded that the banks are set to move fewer than 4,600 jobs in preparation for Brexit.
That would be just six per cent of their London workforce and is far below consultants’ forecasts of more than 10,000 on day one. Professor Patrick Minford, chairman of the pro-Brexit Economists for Free Trade, said: “We welcome this news. It is consistent with all our research on the City – that it will prosper mightily under Brexit.” He said the switch represented just 0.6 per cent of London’s 700,000 financial sector workers, including those outside banking. “Meanwhile, hiring into London finance is rising at around three per cent a year and has gone above its pre-crisis peak,” he added.
The research showed as few as 350 jobs may leave Deutsche Bank’s London HQ by April 2019, compared with its previous warnings of up to 4,000. JPMorgan appears on course to lose around 700 London staff, compared with pre-referendum warnings of up to 4,000.
Separate figures from the Department for International Trade show the number of UK businesses which export rose by 2.6 per cent or nearly 3,000 in July to September, to more than 109,000. America was the biggest market, followed by Ireland and Germany.
Bank of England policy makers voted unanimously to keep interest rates on hold this month, predicting inflation is set to fall. In an upbeat report, the Bank said it now expected growth this year to be “a little above” last month’s forecast of 0.2 per cent because confidence had been boosted by progress in Brexit talks.
NEVER has Project Fear looked more ludicrous than it does today. All those doom-laden warnings about the collapse of the British economy have been totally proven wrong. Our economy is growing and unemployment is at its lowest since 1975.
And now former forecasts about our financial services industry also look laughable: Deutsche Bank said that in the event of Brexit 4,000 jobs would go from its London office. In actual fact the number was 350.
It was always nonsense to pretend that the City of London would be damaged by Brexit. It was one of the world’s great financial centres before we joined the EU and it will remain so when we leave.
We have three huge advantages over the rest of Europe and indeed the rest of the world: we are midway between the US and the Far East and as such act as a gateway from one to the other, we speak the universal language, English, and our financial services industry is the best in the world.
That is why Frankfurt and Paris regularly launch attacks on the City in a bid to make themselves Europe’s financial hub. That is also the reason they will never succeed. Deutsche Bank would have known that better than anyone, which means its intervention was just fear-mongering like so much else in the run-up to the referendum. How hollow it all looks now.