"We will see more volatility, more volume, and that means more traders," Heering Ligthart, president of umbrella group for currency traders The Financial Markets Association (ACI) told Reuters during the Forex/ACI Benelux meeting in Maastricht.

Ligthart said the European Central Bank, in deciding monetary policy for the 11 country Euro zone from January 1, 1999, would not need a foreign exchange policy as such, because so much of the bloc's trade would be internal.

"Therefore volatility against other currencies will increase, and if the Euro is popular, we might even need more traders, not less," he said.

Broadly speaking, traders attending the forex conference agreed.

"There will be more jobs rather than less. The markets are more technical, more sophisticated, so they'll need more people," a trader atBelgium's Generale Bank said.

When the Maastricht agreement scrapping national currencies in favour of one single currency was signed in 1992, traders were up in arms, fearing their jobs would disappear.

But their views have changed. National quirks remain, they say, and volumes will stay the same if not increase.

"The experience of several areas is needed in the Euro. I don't see why a bank would not use its know-how that it had built up because the environment will certainly be more difficult," said one trader from KBC Bank in Brussels.

A senior banker at a Luxembourg-based bank agreed, adding: "We may not be taking on any new people but we do not have the hire-fire mentality that you see in British or U.S. banks,"

However, a few delegates said they would not be clapping their hands at the launch of the Euro.

"Others are optimistic and say there's enough to do in other currencies, but because of centralisation and mergers in the financial sector, people are losing their jobs," a trader at theAmsterdam office of a French bank said.

"The fun has gone. The atmosphere has changed. It's a struggle for life."

"If people are good, if they have the intelligence, they can move to other areas, but not everyone is capable. There are new products, new, sophisticated structures, but this requires different skills," the trader added.