More job cuts in Asia Pacific this week: UBS is trimming 35 people across the region, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The newspaper reports that four IT staff in Singapore and Hong Kong will be axed. But it’s the decision to retrench at least four research analysts in Hong Kong, including some who cover China-related stocks, that seems to form part of a disturbing industry-wide trend.

Other research jobs were culled just last month when RBS announced significant reductions to its equities division in Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, along with plans to sell its Asian cash-equities operations. Spain’s BBVA has also downsized its equity derivatives team from 26 to 12 in Hong Kong.

Recruiters we spoke to for this article say the UBS cuts are not surprising. “Equity research tends to be quite heavily staffed; a bank could have 40 to 50 people covering different sectors. In a good year this makes sense because you need very specific coverage of the market. But in a bad year like now, they don’t need that many people, so that’s why we are seeing consolidation,” says Hong Kong-based Bryan Lim, director, Value Search.

Fixed-income research jobs in Hong Kong have also been trimmed, even though these teams are typically leaner than equities ones. That’s because the trading departments they support have shrunk, says Lim.

The prognosis for re-employment looks bad for retrenched researchers; not much hiring is going on. “It really depends on the specific sector that they focus on. If that’s very narrow then it’s going to be very difficult,” adds Lim.

There is a small silver lining: the possibility of moving into equity sales, especially if the candidate was in Asian cash equities research. However, this would mean working for one of the smaller Western houses, or Chinese/Hong Kong securities firms rather than a big investment bank. And it would involve a considerable pay cut.

The UBS redundancies amount to about 0.5 per cent of its 6,500-strong Asia Pacific workforce, and they come as the firm announced a business refocus this week which prioritises private banking at the expense of its waning global investment bank. In the fourth quarter alone UBS reduced its global headcount by 1,101, despite the comparative success of its investment bank in Asia Pacific.