Recruitment firm Astbury Marsden said the recovery in the jobs market was driven by more active hiring among small and medium-sized banks and fund managers.

There were around 4,000 City job vacancies in January, up from 1,490 in December 2011, but still 25% less than a year ago, it was found.

Mark Cameron, chief operating officer at Astbury Marsden, said: “Some of the more nimble and ambitious City firms see the current market as a good opportunity to build their businesses and expand operations.

“With recent widespread redundancy programmes and many of the biggest banks withdrawing their horns, many firms have realised that there is now a wide pool of talented bankers that they may not have been able to recruit a year ago.

“Those employees that have stayed put for some time to see out the downturn will still be harbouring ambitions to move on.

“Some City firms may also take the view that – as the downturn may have forced competing organisations to shrink and close down areas of their business – now is the time to capitalise and take on additional staff.”

Town centre vacancy rates stabilised last year at an average of 14.3%, or 48,000 shops, according to a report by the Local Data Company, despite a spate of high-profile retail administrations including Barratts, Jane Norman and The Officers Club.

But while some high streets are still thriving, particularly in the south of England, the report warned many centres are “locked in a spiral of decline”.

With 2012 expected to see a further fall in consumer confidence, rising unemployment, the continued growth of supermarkets and the internet and uncertainty in bank lending, it predicts the vacancy rate will rise again.

It said the high street faces “structural issues”, with the internet’s share of the shopping market having doubled in the past 11 years and out-of-town centres also seeing growth, meaning that “there will be, if not already, too many shops on the high street”.

Prime town centre locations have generally remained healthy but secondary centres in outlying areas have been the biggest losers as they struggle to compete with town retail parks and the internet.

The report also confirmed a north-south divide in the health of high streets, with most of the locations with above average vacancy rates in the Midlands or the North.

Stockport was the worst centre with a vacancy rate over 30%, while Nottingham, Grimsby, Stockton-on-Tees, Wolverhampton, Blackburn, Walsall and Blackpool all had more than a quarter of shops empty.

Although York and Harrogate had vacancy rates below 10%, the best performing centres were mainly in the south and west. These included Exeter, Kingston, Camden, Cambridge, Taunton, Salisbury and St Albans, which was the best performer with an 8.2% vacancy rate.

The survey revealed that the squeeze in consumer spending was also hurting shopping malls, with one in five suffering financial difficulties.

LDC director Matthew Hopkinson said: “The stable top line rate of 2011 hides the significant breadth in town centre vacancy rates up and down the country and the structural issues that are at stake.

“The reality is that the odds are stacked against a positive take-up of shops and as such the new reality of 48,000 empty shops is here to stay unless an alternative use or purpose can be found.”

Liz Peace, chief executive of the British Property Federation, said: “Today’s figures show that while some high streets are thriving, others remain locked in a spiral of decline.”

She added that it was vital for measures to save the high street, including those suggested by retail guru Mary Portas, to be brought in as soon as possible. Ms Portas’s suggestions include national market days and more free parking.

British Retail Consortium director general Stephen Robertson said: “It’s a small mercy that shop vacancy rates are not rising but they are still worryingly high in many locations.

“The Government should be keeping down the cost pressures it is responsible for. Most urgently, it should reduce the eye-watering 5.6% business rates increase it plans to impose in April.”

Local Government Minister Grant Shapps said: “It is clear that while some high streets are thriving, others face stiff competition from internet shopping and out-of-town shopping centres. That’s why we already have responded rapidly to recommendations in Mary Portas’s review on the future of high streets and will publish our full response in the spring.

“A new competition will give 12 town centres across the country the opportunity to become ‘Portas Pilots’, so they can benefit from Government funding and expert support to breathe new life into their town centre. And later in the year markets across the country will hold a fortnight of special events, where they will lend their expertise to budding entrepreneurswho want to try their hand at running a business.

“The Government has also scrapped Whitehall rules that instructed councils to hike parking charges, given councils new powers to cut business rates for local firms, and doubled small business rate relief, which will help half a million small firms for the next two-and-a-half years.”

Despite Government attempts to rebalance the economy towards manufacturing and exports, the trade gap has been increasing in recent months, reversing what had seemed to be an improvement.

Despite a steep fall in the value of sterling since 2007, exporters are still struggling to make headway while consumers continue to buy imported goods at higher prices.

And last week’s news that BAE Systems had lost out to France’s Dassault Rafale group over a £13billion contract to supply fighter jets to India underlined the scale of the task. New Delhi’s decision to make Dassault Rafale the ‘preferred bidder’ came despite a trade mission to India in 2010, headed by David Cameron.

Should December’s figures be bad, it will be no use blaming imports related to Christmas presents – figures are seasonally adjusted to remove such distortions.

In November, the deficit on trade in goods was £8.6billion, up from £7.9billion the month before, wiping out a rise in the surplus on trade in services to £6.1billion from £6billion in October.

John Bevan, head of trade for Britain and Ireland at Barclays Corporate, said: ‘In the immediate term I would expect the year-on-year picture to be relatively flat. And exporters are being quite conservative in terms of financing their business.

‘But beneath the service, businesses are optimistic and are going farther afield to find markets. Brazil, Russia, China and India are all in their sights. And the weaker pound is giving British exporters a price advantage.’

Britain last ran an annual surplus on trade in goods 30 years ago.

The warning comes as Greece battles to reach a deal with creditors to write off 100 billion euros (£83 billion) of debt and for a fresh 130 billion euro bailout from the International Monetary Fund.

Talks have dragged on for weeks, but officials claimed this weekend that a deal was close, though similar claims have been made weekly for the past month.

A default by Greece or any other member state would not automatically lead to that country leaving the euro, but observers believe it would be far more likely.

The potential damage from a eurozone collapse is outlined this weekend by financial IT group SunGard, which provides its APT economic modelling software to 200 investment firms, including hedge funds and sovereign wealth funds.

Its analysis suggests that shares in London would fall by about five per cent if Greece quit the euro. The drop would be as much as 15 per cent if it was joined by Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Spain.

If the entire single currency zone broke up, the London market is expected to fall by up to 30 per cent.

In what would be the sixth round of quantitative easing, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee is likely to take the total of its money-creation programme to a minimum of £325billion, the equivalent of more than 22 per cent of gross domestic product.

This staggering figure means that for every £1 in £5 that the nation earns, the Bank has conjured £1 out of thin air.

Nothing on this scale has ever been tried in peace time and the long-term consequences are unpredictable. But with GDP estimated to have fallen by 0.2 per cent in the final quarter of last year, and every likelihood that it will do the same in the current quarter, the MPC is expected to act.

Another quarter of negative growth would put Britain back into recession for the first time since the second quarter of 2009, and the Bank would want to stop that from turning into a prolonged downturn.

Rupert Robinson, chief executive at Schroders Private Banking, said: ‘We expect more quantitative easing. My best guess would be for another £50billion.’

Trevor Williams, chief economist with Lloyds Banking Group, said: ‘I think there will be another round of quantitative easing, and if it is only £50 billion I think we would wonder why it had not been £75 billion.

‘The real economy is no longer contracting, but there has been a fall in the money supply, in consumer credit and in lending to small and medium-sized businesses. There are also the problems in the eurozone.’

Howard Archer, economist with independent forecaster IHS Global Insight, said: ‘It is very much a done deal. I am looking for another £50 billion. We have the risk of contraction during the first quarter of this year. There is a clear case for giving the economy more help.’

Peter Dixon, strategist at Commerzbank, said: ‘We seem to be operating in a improved market environment.’

Last week saw upbeat surveys of purchasing managers, but these are thought unlikely to stay the Bank’s hand.

Under quantitative easing, which began in March 2009, the Bank creates new cash and then buys assets, mainly British Government bonds, from private-sector investors other than banks. It is hoped that this pumps money into the system.

More than one quarter of 19-24 year-olds who cannot recall any contact with employers while at school are now not in education, employment or training (NEET), according to new research by the charity.

Meanwhile less than five per cent of those surveyed who had taken part in four or more activities involving employers (such as career insights, mentoring, work tasters, work experience) are NEET.

The survey, ‘It’s who you  meet: Why employer contacts at school make a difference to the employment prospects of young adults’, shows that only seven per cent of young adults can recall four or more activities of employer engagement having taken place while at school.

While 98 per cent of 333 teenage pupils surveyed by Deloitte in 2010 wanted to have more involvement with employers, only 42 per cent had spoken to someone from the workplace about jobs and careers.

The greatest impacts can be expected on those young people whose families have weakest access to relevant sources of career insights, such as the two million children who live in workless households.

According to the Education and Employers Taskforce, countries with the greatest success in dealing with youth unemployment typically include extensive workplace exposure within their educational programmes.

It also argues young people are especially attentive and trusting of first-hand information about jobs and career pathways received from employers.

By Vicki Owen

BP announced today that Dame Ann Dowling will join its board as a non-executive director. The head of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge, where she is Professor of Mechanical Engineering, is taking up her new role this week. 

BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg says: ‘I welcome Ann Dowling to the board. Ann has a strong academic and engineering background and I look forward to her contribution to our discussions.’

Dowling has held visiting posts at MIT and Caltech and has had strong links with industry throughout her career, BP says.

Facts about Dame Ann Dowling:

- Her research is primarily in the fields of combustion, fluid mechanics, vibration and noise, and is aimed mainly at the transport and energy sectors.

- She is one of the founders of the Energy Efficient Cities initiative in Cambridge. 

- She is chairman to the University Gas Turbine Partnership (UGTP) with Rolls-Royce in which a range of technologies are researched for the next generations of aero and industrial gas turbines.

- She was UK lead of the Silent Aircraft Initiative, a collaboration between researchers at Cambridge and MIT, which led to the development of a conceptual design for a novel, ultra-low noise, fuel-efficient aircraft that has helped set the scene for NASA’s long-term vision.

- She is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, Foreign Member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and of the French Academy of Sciences.

- She has an Honorary ScD degree from Trinity College Dublin and an Honorary Fellowship from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

- She has served on a number of industry and government advisory bodies.

- She chaired the Royal Society/Royal Academy of Engineering study on Nanotechnology and is chairing the Physical Sciences, Engineering and Mathematics Panel in the Research Excellence Framework – the UK government’s review of research in universities.

- She was appointed CBE by the Queen for services to Mechanical Engineering in 2002, and DBE for services to Science in 2007.

A survey of 2,000 adults showed that almost a third were planning a spring holiday, compared with an average of around one in five over the past three years.

Savings firm ING Direct said its study confirmed a decline in the number of people taking summer holidays in recent years.

Chief executive Richard Doe said: “It’s understandable that families are choosing not to go on holiday during the summer months when they can get away in the spring for much less and save money.

“This is compounded by the fact we’re set for a outstanding summer of sport, with one of the greatest sporting events in the world taking place on our doorstep.”

Pay analysts Incomes Data Services (IDS) said around two thirds of 30 awards recorded this year were worth at least 3% compared with a median rise of 2.5% in 2011.

Wage rises in the motor industry have been worth a median of 4% since the start of the year, while other manufacturing sectors such as engineering have also reported higher rises than last year.

Ken Mulkearn, of IDS, said: “Private sector pay settlements look like they could be higher on average than last year, but the picture so far is only a partial one.

“If this turns out to be the case, and inflation continues to fall, private sector workers are likely to welcome the prospect of an easing-off in the squeeze on their incomes that most of them experienced over the past 12 months.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber commented: “Employees will hope that these early indications of an easing in wage restraint spread beyond manufacturing and into the rest of the economy.

“But we’re still a long way away from wages keeping pace with prices, let alone making up for years of real terms pay cuts, and we’ll need sustained wage growth to deliver the boost in consumer spending that our economy still desperately needs.

“Union negotiators will be looking to factor the current corporate cash glut into decent pay settlements.”

Employment in the manufacturing sector was broadly unchanged in January, with the improvement in payroll numbers in small and medium-sized enterprises offset by cuts implemented at large-sized companies.

Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, said the survey increased the chances that the overall economy returned to growth in the first quarter.

However, he added: “With only one month of the quarter having passed and the headwinds from the eurozone likely to intensify, it is far too early to say that the economy has avoided a renewed recession.”

Pay analysts Incomes Data Services (IDS) said around two thirds of 30 awards recorded this year were worth at least 3% compared with a median rise of 2.5% in 2011.

Wage rises in the motor industry have been worth a median of 4% since the start of the year, while other manufacturing sectors such as engineering have also reported higher rises than last year.

Ken Mulkearn, of IDS, said: “Private sector pay settlements look like they could be higher on average than last year, but the picture so far is only a partial one.

“If this turns out to be the case, and inflation continues to fall, private sector workers are likely to welcome the prospect of an easing-off in the squeeze on their incomes that most of them experienced over the past 12 months.”

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber commented: “Employees will hope that these early indications of an easing in wage restraint spread beyond manufacturing and into the rest of the economy.

“But we’re still a long way away from wages keeping pace with prices, let alone making up for years of real terms pay cuts, and we’ll need sustained wage growth to deliver the boost in consumer spending that our economy still desperately needs.

“Union negotiators will be looking to factor the current corporate cash glut into decent pay settlements.”