Anxious City workers may be looking for less well-paid but "safe" careers in teaching, the agency behind the recruitment of staff in England says.
More people are said to be becoming interested in a teaching careerAnxious bankers fearing their jobs are under threat are to be targeted as potential recruits by England's teacher training agency.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools is launching recruitment fairs in London's financial district for the first time.
The Training and Development Agency for Schools is planning to visit London's financial districts in a bid to find people who might re-train as teachers.
It says there has been a 34% rise in the number of people interested in entering teaching in recent months.
The agency (TDA) says the credit crunch has already boosted inquiries about teaching as a career.
The profession has suffered a downturn in recruitment since the 1990s.
Its recruitment website has had a 34% annual increase in traffic.
'Secure career'
It also says there has been a 13% increase since last year in the number of people registering an interest in becoming teachers.
Reports suggest thousands of jobs in the financial sector could be lost because of the credit crisis.
Job security
Many graduates were lured to the financial sector in the 1990s when a booming economy meant many high-paid jobs were on offer.
The TDA says it will be sending recruiters to Canary Wharf and the City in the next couple of weeks, with the aim of encouraging financial workers to consider becoming teachers.
This is said to have resulted in a particular shortage of maths and science teachers.
"These are worrying and unstable times for everyone, and it may be that people are looking toward teaching as a secure as well as rewarding career," says the TDA's chief executive, Graham Holley.
But now the public sector agency hopes it will be able to lure high-flying candidates back again.
There have been fears of job losses in banks and the financial services industry as a result of turmoil in the financial markets - and the teacher training agency is offering itself as a way into a more reliable alternative.
Between March to September 2007, the TDA teach.gov.uk website received just over 758,308 unique web hits, while the same period this year saw the figure jump to 1,018,580.
Teaching has traditionally been seen as becoming a more popular career choice during recession - providing security when private sector jobs become more vulnerable.
Chief executive Graham Holley said: "These are worrying and unstable times for everyone, and it may be that people are looking toward teaching as a secure as well as rewarding career."
There has been also been a growing emphasis on re-training staff from other industries, and earlier this year the TDA launched a Transition to Teaching scheme designed to help people with a career change.
The financial sector's expansion in recent years has seen it becoming a major employer for graduates - raising concerns if such openings are no longer available. A survey earlier this year found that about a third of graduate jobs were in banking or finance.
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