Bob Diamond of Barclays joined the ranks of UK bank chiefs in the last week, and murmured softly that if curbs on bonuses got too fierce, bankers would flee the country. Thus he antagonized the public more.

If it is seen more objectively, this is an important matter. Some kinds of banker and not all become much more mobile in the last three decades both by employer and by geography. Why has this happened? Will other industries get affected by this trend? And, if it is not functional can it be reversed?

Those questions can be asked at several levels. First, a headhunter who got consulted stated that according to his experience the mobility of staff within industries depended on the markets they served.

Thus, investors who invest in international debt or equity very rarely care where trades are done, and in turn the traders behave accordingly. To some extent the same is true in cases of pharmaceuticals or mobile telecom industries.

But other markets vary from country to country. Retail executives, to a large extent, do not travel. Nor do retail bankers.

Next, loyalty is both way traffic. Rational employees will only be as loyal to the firm as the firm is to them.

In America downsizing wave of the mid-1990s, Jack Welch of General Electric told his employees that he could not give any guarantee for their jobs and that could be guaranteed by customers only .This was, effectively an invitation to look at themselves as autonomous agents.

In the UK over the last twenty years, firms have switched their pension schemes en masse from defined benefit to defined contribution. The message they conveyed to employees is similar. The firm cannot guarantee their pensions, only the financial markets can. Banking has burdens of its own. Most big investment banking operations in America or England began as stockbrokers. This is an uncertain business to be precise.