Australia's finance industry, which shrank in 2008 for the first time in 13 years, shed 6768 jobs since the start of last year and more cuts are likely, an industry union said.
Banks including ANZ Bank and brokerages such as Goldman Sachs JBWere sacked workers as the global credit crisis worsened, the Finance Sector Union said.
The list will swell as companies including AMP and Westpac trim staff, the union said.
"There will be a very large number of jobs lost," Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner told the national Press Club today. "Cleary, there are job losses occurring in certain parts of the economy."
Australia's financial industry is carrying out the biggest round of staffing cuts since the early 1990s, when the nation's economy was last in recession.
Globally, more than 280,000 financial-services jobs have been lost since July 2007 as credit losses and write-downs approach $US1.2 trillion ()$1.9 trillion), according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Westpac hasn't made any announcements about job cuts, said David Lording, a spokesman for the bank.
AMP shed about 300 workers in the last quarter of 2008, according to Sarah Hudson, the company's group media manager.
Financial services account for 7.8% of the economy, the Investment and Financial Services Association estimates. There are about $1.3 trillion in funds under management in the country.
