April 23, 2009

The good old days are over for Canadians working in the City, the fabled London district that once gave Britain the world's most powerful international financial sector.Tens of thousands of Canadians and Americans have for years been drawn to London to take jobs in banking, many of them working for the gilt-edged British operations of U.S. investment giants.

But the appeal of the expatriate careers has been tarnished by the meltdown of the British banking industry as the recession that started on Wall Street 18 months ago spread around the globe.Estimates of jobs lost in London's financial businesses between 2007 and March 2009 run as high as 130,000.Yeah, and I think half of them are in my inbox," joked employee recruiter Josh Wright.