Jobs cuts in the financial services industry nearly doubled this year, climbing to 34,856 jobs in the first four months of 2013, up from 12,860 cuts during the same time period a year earlier.

In March alone, 3,517 financial services jobs were cut and another 1,037 were slashed in April, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Financial services leads the list of industries with the most job cuts so far in 2013.

Still, overall staff reductions fell to their lowest level since December with employers trimming only 38,121 jobs in April. That is down 23% from 49,255 layoffs in March and a 6% drop from a year ago when 40,559 job reductions hit the market.

Additionally, jobless claims sank to 324,000 filings, dropping 18,000 from the previous week’s amount of 342,000 filings, the Department of Labor said.

“The economic slowdown that began late in the third quarter and is expected to turn into another summer slump has yet to result in increased or widespread downsizing,” said John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas. 

He added, “The biggest concern is that consumers, who had been holding up the economy for so many months, are starting to scale back their spending as wages continue to stagnate.”