If you work in rates, and you measure happiness in terms of the number of people who want to hire you, 2010 will have been an ecstatic time.

During the past few months, a lot of places have hired rates professionals. BofA has poached from BarCap, RBC has declared an intention of recruiting 25 new rates and government debt people, BNP Paribas has been bleeding rates professionals, Deutsche has been soaking them up.

However, banks second quarter results made it amply clear that any rates joy is now dissipating.

Credit Suisse spoke of the rates business ‘normalising’ (shrinking), JPMorgan also cited a poor second quarter in rates, as did Goldman.

Headhunters in the area say most rates recruitment is now complete.

“A lot of rates sales desks were built up earlier this year,” says Dominie Moss, head of the rates and FX business at Sheffield Haworth. “Smaller players may continue to hire, but they’re likely to be a lot more cautious about it after this week’s results.”

Nevertheless, rumour has it that banks like BNP and RBS are still open to good hires in rates sales.

“People are still hiring, particularly in rates sales,” says Russell Clarke at FigTree Search. “However, in rates trading, recruitment activity is probably down 50% compared to the start of the year.”