Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange April 1, 2008. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo) Photo Gallery>>>

    BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhuanet) -- Financial institutions in the United States have been laying off employees at a record rate, and some analysts predict the commercial banking industry to lose 200,000 of its 2 million jobs during the next 12 to 18 months.

    In 2007, the entire financial services sector — which consists of mostly commercial banks — announced job cuts that totaled a record 153,000, according to the job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. More than half of those cuts were in the mortgage-lending business, and occurred all over the country, particularly in New York and California.

    Octavio Marenzi, the head of Celent's financial consultancy unit, said more layoffs are inevitable as the subprime crisis hits other parts of the banking industry and spreads beyond mortgages to mortgage-related products, such as home-equity loans, and other types of lending, such as credit cards.

    "The banking industry over the past 40 years has never seen a downturn in its revenue growth," Marenzi said. "In 2008, it looks like it will decrease for the first time in living memory. They're going to have to respond with severe cost cutting. It's not an environment they're entirely used to."

    "There's no horizon yet that anybody can see," said John Challenger, who runs Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "New events keep rolling out ... suggesting that there's more to come."

    Financial services companies announced in January that they were cutting 16,000 U.S. jobs, and companies said in February they were trimming 6,000 more, Challenger said. Those figures are below last year's peak in August when companies announced they were cutting nearly 36,000 jobs, but analysts expect further layoffs in the coming months.

    Many banks that have reported huge losses have so far not announced significant layoffs outside the mortgage area, Challenger added. Just Tuesday, Swiss bank UBS AG — which has a big portion of its staff in the United States — said it lost more than 12 billion U.S. dollars in the first quarter.

    And Celent's estimate does not include the securities industry, which currently employs some 800,000 people — more than it ever has, after a multiyear hiring spree, Marenzi said.

    (Agencies)