If New York and London are bearing the brunt of redundancies in the US and Europe respectively, is Hong Kong becoming the best place to wield the axe in Asia? And are there any glimmers of hope on the job front?

Everyone’s cutting in Q4

Staff numbers are falling at almost every big Western bank in HK. Deutsche Bank trimmed from its credit proprietary trading team last week, following in the footsteps of redundancy-making rivals such as HSBC, Citigroup, Credit Suisse and UBS.

Smaller players are at it too. Citadel Investments is reducing its Hong Kong staff by about half, eliminating 25 positions. And Asia-Pacific banks – like Macquarie, Nomura and DBS – have also been hacking their Hong Kong headcount.

More to come

Job losses will continue to batter bankers over the next few months. Look out for large layoffs at RBS later this week and at Credit Suisse in Q1. As one headhunter told me: “There will be more cuts early next year, following Q4 profit announcements. Banks are cutting into the meat now, not just the fat. Line managers are having to make difficult choices. Good performers are being let go, not just the bottom 10%.”

IPO and proprietary teams at banks are taking a hammering, as are analysts working in dead sectors such as real estate. And unfortunately, all the recent merger activity in the banking sector isn’t causing a spike in demand for financial-institutions-group (FIG) analysts. FIG teams (especially in Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs) are overstaffed in Hong Kong anyway.

It’s not only the obvious front-office roles which are being scrapped. Back-office settlement jobs are vulnerable too because trading volumes are falling in HK.

Are any jobs still hot in Hong Kong?

On the i-banking front, the most sought-after professionals have M&A experience, speak Mandarin and have local contacts. No fresh expats please. To land a decent job without this M&A/Mandarin combo, you must be a strong origination banker – at VP level or above – in a comparatively successful industry (for example, natural resources or infrastructure).

The middle office is in a bit better shape, with replacement hiring (and snippets of growth) happening in risk management, cost control, insolvency, fraud and compliance.

Going from a bank to a Big 4 accountancy firm, once considered a backward step for your pay and prestige, is now becoming a more acceptable career option. These firms are still hiring in HK and might just have a new home for you in a due diligence, insolvency or audit role.

Churning for private banking

Hong Kong’s private banks are in cut and churn mode. For every 10 under-performing private bankers who are cut, about seven hot-shot new recruits are taken on, says one recruiter. Independent firms, such as Julius Baer, LTG and Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch are doing most of the hiring.

Recruitment is almost exclusively at a senior level and private banks are no longer taking on priority bankers from the likes of HSBC Premier. These professionals don’t have the same depth to their product knowledge and employers are no longer willing to take a punt that they will come good in the more demanding world of private banking. Former priority bankers, hired during the boom years, are also among the first people that the private banks are now letting go.

Turning to the Chinese

There is widespread agreement in banking circles that Chinese firms are the most aggressive recruiters in HK as they try to take advantage of the talent glut. On the candidate side, the snobbery about working for them has all but gone.

Whether these jobs are any safer or not in the longer term is the where the real debate lies. Bank of China’s HK arm is being bailed out by its mainland parent this week, reports the Financial Times. A sign of more trouble on the horizon?