LONDON BRIEFINGEveryone in the investment banking world is worried that it could be their turn next, writes Fiona Walsh

THERE AREN'T many similarities between car workers in the west midlands and the highly-paid investment bankers who inhabit the glass and metal towers of London's Canary Wharf.

But on Monday, 5,000 employees of Lehman Brothers cleared their desks in Britain's biggest single loss of jobs since car production was halted at the MG Rover factory at Longbridge in Birmingham in 2005.

Three years ago, Rover employees streamed through the factory gates to face the cameras and television queues.

This week, Lehman's "Masters of the Universe" pushed their way through the revolving doors of the bank's London headquarters for the final time, clutching boxes containing their personal possessions. Some in tears, they headed towards Canary Wharf station while others, to the delight of the waiting media, unloaded their boxes into the boots of Ferraris and 4x4s and sped away to contemplate their future.

The multimillionaire bankers elicited little sympathy - they live by the sword and die by the sword and will have put enough by never to have to worry about working again.

But there were stories every bit as poignant as at Longbridge: the graduate trainee who had been at the bank for just one week and left the building clutching a Lehman Brothers branded umbrella and a rugby ball. "My career has been screwed," he said.

Or the heavily pregnant support staff worker whose husband was also a Lehman employee and who wondered whether the paychecks due this Friday would ever arrive.

As the scene unfolded, horrified staff at rival firms Barclays and Citigroup looked down from their neighbouring tower blocks.

Unusually for the notoriously heartless world of investment banking, there was little Schadenfreude on display at the inglorious demise of Wall Street's fourth-largest investment bank - they all knew it could be their turn next.

The mood in the Wharf remained grim yesterday as Lehman employees continued to trickle in and out of the building at 25 Bank Street for further desk clearing, some heading towards the local cafes for hastily- arranged job interviews or meetings with headhunters.

A survey from management consultancy Hay Group and the Centre for Economic and Business Research did nothing to dispel the gloom - it predicted that job cuts in the banking and financial services sectors would total more than 100,000 over the next year as the industry pays the price for having so seriously underestimated the impact of the credit crunch on their companies' profits.

And that does not include the knock-on effects of the City of London's job losses - effects that will ripple through virtually every sector, from the restaurants that serve the well-paid bankers to the sandwich bars their less well-paid colleagues frequent; to the holiday firms, the car dealers, and the gardeners and nannies they employ.

At one point yesterday and amid wild trading as the FTSE 100 index of leading shares tumbled for a second day, it looked as though Britain's biggest mortgage lender, HBOS, might be the next in line. Its shares crashed as much as 40 per cent at one stage - slashing its stock market value to less than £12 billion (€15 billion) - as confidence

threatened to evaporate in an institution that is not only Britain's biggest mortgage lender but also holds £1 in every £5 of the nation's savings.

While this gives the bank access to cash to fund its operations, it is still reliant on the risky, and effectively paralysed, money markets. HBOS rushed out an emergency statement aimed at reassuring the market, and its shares had come off their lows by the close. But they still ended the day more than 20 per cent adrift; bad news indeed for its army of two million small shareholders.

Confidence in the bank, which owns the Halifax, remains fragile and a downgrading by ratings agency Standard Poor's piled on the gloom. It is, the agency said, "less well positioned to manage the deteriorating operating environment" than its rivals.

Spotting the next victim is a dangerous game - loose words in this fevered environment can spark a stampede for the exit, as Lehman Brothers, which survived the Great Crash of 1929 only to fall victim to the credit crunch, knows to its cost.

• Fiona Walsh writes for the Guardian newspaper in London