From The Associated Press

The U.S. financial industry has been shedding jobs at a record clip, and some analysts predict the pace will only accelerate over the next year-and-a-half as banks cut costs in the face of the housing market slump and the weak economy.

Analysts at the financial research firm Celent LLC said in a report Tuesday that it expects the U.S. commercial banking industry — essentially, all companies that lend or collect deposits — to lose 200,000 of its 2 million jobs over the next 12 to 18 months.

An annual loss of 200,000 jobs at the nation’s commercial banks would be an unprecedented number.

In 2007, the entire financial services sector — which consists of mostly commercial banks — announced job cuts that totaled a record 153,000, according to the job placement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc. More than half of those cuts were in the mortgage-lending business, and occurred all over the country, particularly in New York and California.

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