The number of new City jobs fell in August, according to the latest Morgan McKinley London Employment Monitor.

The Monitor registered registered an 18% month-on-month drop in job opportunities from 4,977 to 4,095. Compared to August last year, this was also a fall of 26% from 5,544 available roles.

Meanwhile, active and passive candidate numbers entering the hiring market rose by 17% month-on-month from 8,770 to 10,291 in the month, 5% less than the 10,810 new jobseekers in the market in August 2010.

Average time to fill roles in August 2011 rose by one day to reach 58 days.

Morgan McKinley Financial Services chief operations officer, Andrew Evans, says: “Last month we identified the ‘perfect storm’ of factors influencing the relatively low number of available jobs in the financial services hiring market. August 2011 has seen a continuation of these negative economic conditions.

“A deterioration in the volume of hiring was therefore expected. In fact, the 18% month-on-month drop represents the lowest level of job availability this year. It is also further impacted by this being the peak period of the summer holiday months – a time when recruitment activity traditionally slows down each year.”