LONDON—The credit crunch will cost London 62,000 financial jobs or finance related jobs in 2008 and 2009, wiping out the hiring gains of the past decade, a British economics consultancy group said in a report on Monday.

The number of professionals in London’s financial industry — Europe’s biggest — will drop by 28,000 this year from the 2007 level and a further 34,000 jobs will go next year, said the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).

Only 291,000 will work in the industry in 2009, it added.

“The chances for a strong bounce-back … from 2010 onwards appear to be slim,” CEBR said.

It is unclear how many jobs have already been cut this year, a spokesman for CEBR said.

The worst-hit sector will be corporate finance, likely to slash more than half of its 15,000-strong workforce in the next two years. The derivatives business will be a close second, with employment shrinking by 46 percent over the same period.

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