Credit Crunch - Impact on in-house tax jobs?

I am now hearing from a few independant sources of recruitment freezes affecting the large corporations and global banks in London that are looking to recuit. This is all quite worrying, and it would seem that this time the banks are not being slow off the mark to bring down the recruitment shutters. Although I guess this time the potential financial crises is happening in their back yard, rather than being sparked by an Enron or dot-com crash, and so they should know when to stop hiring.

Bob Reynolds, editor of Tax Careers, comments in their latest issue that recruiters are in somewhat of self-denial about what may happen to jobs in financial institutions, and that their attitude seems to be stay calm, your jobs are safe, everything will be OK. Bob responds with 'The banks will make some cuts and then, if the global economy improves, attempt to recruit again'. I would tend to agree with Bob on that.

If this potential crises does end up hitting us all hard, then in terms of in-house tax jobs, I suspect that it will be the major top tier banks and corporate giants that will need to cut in some areas, but generally in-house tax teams tend to stay fairly resilient in down turns. Tax teams within second tier banks and most other FTSE companies should stay at roughly the same size through a turbulent time. Some stand-alone tax roles may be at risk, but I think it will depend on their particular corporate sector.

The current nervousness in the market could all blow over in the next few months, and us recruiters will be smiling again, but I sense that the next couple of years could be a bit more difficult.