City jobs have gone UP since the Brexit vote

Despite grandstanding from foreign banks and the gloom of Remainers...

BANKS, insurers and other financial companies created almost 120 jobs every day over the past three months, making a mockery of Remainers’ claims of a mass Brexit exodus.

There were a total of 3,000 more jobs at financial and insurance companies in the second quarter of 2017 compared to the time of the Brexit vote.

At the end of the second quarter, the total number of jobs stood at 1.094m, and had actually risen by 11,000 in just three months, official statistics show. The number of vacant posts stood at 33,000, the joint-highest figure since 2015, suggesting demand for staff remains high.

The figures undermine a concerted effort by City spinners to convince the authorities that businesses are on the brink of leaving.

Lobby group The City UK was yesterday forced to backtrack after its boss Miles Celic wrongly claimed that 10,000 bankers had already left London. And a host of banks which once suggested they might move staff away have since toned down their rhetoric and signed up for vast new headquarters in the capital.

John Longworth, a former head of the British Chambers of Commerce who is now part of campaign group Leave Means Leave, said: ‘The City is in rude health.

‘There’s no doubt that there are some elements which are continuing the Project Fear campaign, when in actual fact the number of jobs has risen and there are a large number of new vacancies.’

Brexit-backing Tory MP John Redwood said: ‘We’re creating lots of extra jobs and there’s lots of extra property being rented.

‘London remains a great global city, and these figures show that once again.’

Since the referendum campaign began, banks have issued a stream of dire warnings they will move staff abroad unless Britain prioritises financial services during Brexit negotiations.

In October last year, British Bankers’ Association boss Anthony Browne claimed that hands were ‘quivering over the relocate button’. He said small lenders would begin moving staff before Christmas unless ministers bent over backwards to keep them in the UK. But several banking titans which once threatened to sack workers if they weren’t taken seriously have since changed their tune.

US lender JP Morgan’s boss Jamie Dimon said he would get rid of 4,000 British staff if the country quit the EU but has since U-turned, admitting he would not be ‘moving many people’.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs is still pushing ahead with building a vast new office in London, the size of nearly 18 football pitches. And Germany’s biggest lender, Deutsche Bank, which once said 4,000 of its London jobs could go, has played down the threat.

Deutsche has also signed up for a massive new London HQ.