(Yicai) July 9 -- Chinese securities firms are further scaling back salaries and staff are leaving as the number of initial public offerings dived in the first half of the year because of tighter listing rules and the downturn in the stock market.

There were 343,800 securities industry workers in China as of yesterday, about 8,000, or 4.5 percent, fewer than at the start of the year, according to figures compiled by Choice, a financial data platform under East Money.

So far this year, some 318 companies have pulled their applications to go public in the Chinese mainland, data from Wind Information shows. Only 46 have listed, raising CNY33.8 billion (USD4.6 billion) between them, down 74 percent and 84 percent respectively from a year earlier.

What little IPO work there is has gone mainly to leading brokerages. Just 21 reported income from IPO underwriting and sponsorship for the first half, with the top five firms -- Citic Securities, China Securities, Minsheng Securities, Huatai Securities, and Haitong Securities -- handling 20 of the 46 listings.

Brokerage salaries had already fallen in the past few years as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

After regulators announced this April that IPOs would be subject to stricter rules, brokerage employees have faced further salary cuts and some are even leaving the industry.

State-owned China International Capital Corporation paid an average annual salary of CNY696,800 (USD95,800) last year, down 10.2 percent on the previous year and 40 percent from 2020, according to the Beijing-based firm’s latest annual earnings report.

Sources told Yicai in May that CICC had decided to lay off one third of the employees in its investment banking division and slash salaries by a quarter.

Other securities firms have been moving staff into different roles and shifting their investment banking focus, Yicai learned at the time. For example, Citic Securities reshuffled its investment banking division, moving some workers out of equities to other departments.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione