‘Hanging in there” has become the City’s most over-used phrase. People have started muttering it before you’ve asked: “How’s it going?”

Those who survived the recent purges at Citi, Morgan and Goldman might be considered the lucky ones, but you wouldn’t know it to speak to them. With bonuses slashed, expense­ accounts frozen and pay rises off the horizon, they walk around as if they’re auditioning­ for a part in Night of the Living Dead.

Having kissed goodbye to all the perks of the past, no one wants to “hang in” there – but no one wants to lose their job either. Which is why more of us are becoming members of the pudding club. Procreation is the newest­ way to hang on to a precarious ­position that’s boring you.

In the UK, it is not impossible for a bank to fire a woman on maternity leave, but it is much harder. At first glance, this tactic may sound terribly cynical, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Yep, those traders who deferred motherhood to maximise their returns during the boom are increasingly embracing it, if that’s what it takes to avoid the axe. Having a baby provides a graceful, and possibly profitable, exit from an unattractive City life. And for those ladies who can keep ’em coming, there’s always the chance that they’ll return to a bull market. And that alone is worth a few sleepless nights.

If this keeps up, the most over-used phrase will be “kicking in there?” as City girls sidestep lay-offs with their scam.

It is not my natural instinct­ to spoon-feed ­babies rather than clients­ at lunchtime, or to swap intellectually­ stimulating conversation for Teletubbies (and, of course, there’s the fear of trading in my svelte figure for ­saddlebags), but the threat of unemployment has made me think about how fertile I am.