UK finance professionals have been hit harder by the economic downturn than counterparts in other leading financial centres, as companies lay off staff to cut costs, according to a new survey.

Of UK executives working in the public and private sectors questioned by recruitment consultant Robert Half, 45% of those who reported being affected bythe downturn said that their organisation had made redundancies in their accounting and finance departments during the past year.

That compares with 38% of US respondents, 28% of Japanese executives and 26% of Swiss respondents, according to the survey of 4,830 finance, human resources and senior executives in 21 countries.

Only four countries reported more redundancies in their finance departments than the UK - Canada (50%), Australia (49%), Ireland (48%) and Hong Kong (46%).

UK respondents said that current economic conditions had resulted in increased workloads (43%), greater stress (44%) and lower morale (35%) within the accounting and finance department.

However, on a more upbeat note, more than half of UK executives questioned said that they expected the economy to rebound by early next year or before.

Within the UK, the most sought-after attribute for finance executives is experience and knowledge of the industry sector (65%), followed by expertise in regulatory-compliance (47%) and public-company experience (34 %).

Phil Sheridan, managing director of Robert Half, said: 'While we are currently in an "employers’ market", with a sharp increase in the number of individuals in the job market, when the upturn begins, those companies who manage to both retain and further develop their talent during the recession will be best placed to take advantage of new opportunities as soon as they emerge.'

According to Robert Half, it currently takes organisation an average of just over seven weeks to fill a non-managerial position within accounting and f inance departments in the UK.

UK respondents said the most difficult role to recruit was skilled financial managers.