Martin Flanagan: Page is unable to bank on its traditional strong links to the City

THE 13 per cent hit taken at one stage yesterday by white-collar recruitment firm Michael Page International implies investors believe the stock market rollercoaster has some way to roll.

About 10 per cent of the company's profit comes from recruiting bankers, mostly of the high-rolling kind rather than meat-and-two-veg high street managers.

And Michael Page, whose shares closed down 8 per cent, says there are clear signs banks are freezing recruitment amid the uncertain ramifications of what seems in danger of becoming a chronic, rather than acute, eurozone sovereign debt problem.

This drama is unfolding against the backcloth of major banks like HSBC, Lloyds and Barclays recently announcing big redundancy programmes involving both retail and investment banking.

It would also be surprising if the malaise in banking recruitment was not aggravated by regulatory uncertainty ahead of the publication next month of the final findings of the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB).

If the ICB goes ahead with its initial recommendation last spring of wanting to ringfence retail from investment banking operations, that is likely to add new pressure on investment banking employment levels.

Royal Bank of Scotland said only recently that there could be up to a further 2,000 jobs still to go in its sharply reduced wholesale banking arm as part of its own restructuring.

The banking industry, whose share prices have been battered since last spring, looks, for a mixture of reasons, to be on the back foot as far as hiring goes. There doesn't seem any obvious reason why such caution should fade short term. That is unlikely to hit high-profile signings in the sector. Banks will always try to steal a march on each other by poaching key teams of staff, as it raised morale and attracts business. That is likely to continue despite the gathering clouds seen by Michael Page.

But in terms of overall numbers it is likely to be a different picture, particularly if a major eurozone bank does fail. That would frighten the whole banking industry and lead to an even more severe freeze on recruitment.

Leading players such as Barclays, HSBC, etc have also said they want to improve both their cost/income ratios and return on equity. Inevitably this will sharpen the gimlet eye on recruitment.

Hiring and firing in banking is even more cyclical than most industries. And as the financial and economic backdrop is so tough, it is clear, Asia apart, that recruitment is in the down phase.

Broken society has the sound of a straight-to-video film

DAVID Cameron's talk of fixing the broken society is clearly heartfelt, but suffers from the same nebulousness as his "Big Society" initiative.

The Prime Minister is more closely allied to many ordinary people's thinking when he talks about potentially clamping down on the likes of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry Messenger, and social networks that make it easier to foment large-scale criminality on the streets.

By contrast, tackling indisipline in school and family breakdown, without many practical specifics, has connotations of Tony Blair wanting to march hooligans to cash points for instant financial retribution. Whatever happened to that idea? "Broken society" has a straight-to-video film quality about it as well while it lacks details of how society's wheels can be put back on.

Politics is at its best when it is pragmatic and costed. All the rest looks like bromides amid the flung bricks, soundbites on the wing.

Google's move for Motorla is a portent of battle with Apple

THE ante has been upped in the commercial gambles to piggyback the aspirational ubiquity of smartphones and tablet computers with Google's 7.7 billion takeover of mobile handset maker Motorola.

The deal is groundbreaking as it gives the search engine control over one of the largest makers of mobile phones running Android, Google's own operating system.

It is understandable the company is prepared to pay top-dollar for the privilege, a 63 per cent premium to last week's Motorola stock price.

The move underlines Google's increasingly bare-knuckle fight with Apple through their respective Android and iPhone/iPad products.

It is Google's biggest deal and, together with robust recent trading, shows the company has more of a swagger.

Patently, the group has decided it wants an integrated hardware and software business model, and in this it is tipping its hat to Apple.

Google is not just acquiring a strong patent, the acquisition is a significant strategic change in a fast-moving sector.