Pasadena, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 06/27/2011 -- Financial firms are still cutting jobs and are expected to continue to do so, says a report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

There were mass layoffs in the sector in 2008 as well, but this time the layoffs are said to be permanent. The report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas has said that the financial sector is going to be cutting 21 percent more jobs this year than in 2010. Over 11,000 jobs are expected to be cut by banks, brokers, and insurance companies.

As of now, most of the layoffs have been in the retail banking sector and more recently in the smaller regional banks. Challenger's report predicts that the next big round of layoffs will be in the large investment firms and commercial banks. The reason given is that there are now fundamental changes in the way financial firms are doing business.

The good news for those interested in working in the financial sector is that major Wall Street firms are now recruiting veterans. At a recent job fair hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and Bank Of America among others showed up to interview veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

There were over 100 firms at the job fair which was held aboard the USS Intrepid. FinancialServicesCrossing, a job aggregator site for the finance professionals has found over 20,000 jobs in the sector in the past seven days.