Financial commentators have this week been looking at the possible reasons behind new findings that reveal confidence within the financial services job sector.
Massive increaseAmbereen Choudhury of
Bloomberg outlines the latest findings by recruitment firm Morgan McKinley, which show a doubling of the number of professionals seeking a job in the UK financial sector, coupled with a 30% increase in available jobs. Choudhury quotes Hakan Enver, Operations Director at Morgan McKinley Financial Services, who says: “The massive increase in job seekers shows that people are confident they can improve their compensation packages.”
The survey found the year-on-year increase was 105%, up from 7,404 people in August 2014 to 15,212 in August 2015. It further found that the average salary for those securing a new position in August 2015 increased by 17%.
Choudhury says that, according to Bank of England policy makers, the recent market shocks and economic slowdown in China have failed to tarnish the UK’s overall economic outlook. Instead, prospects remain healthy. Still, Choudhury adds, “British banks including Standard Chartered have said they plan to streamline their business and eliminate ‘waste and excess’”.
Bloomberg report
Chaotic markets However, writing for
City AM, Chris Papadopoullos warns that the strong labour market may be short-lived if global stock markets continue on their downward spiral, following the stock-market crash in China.
Papadopoullos points to Morgan McKinley findings that suggest that while the global stock market sell-off did not have an immediate impact on the professional jobs market during August, the effects of any market upheaval are normally only felt around three to six months later.
Nevertheless, Morgan McKinley’s Hakan Enver did sound a note of caution in a recent
press release: “For now it’s only a single month event, but if the market stays in the red for the next few months, we would expect it to show in hiring later on in the year. . . Next year’s edition of the
Oxford Dictionary should have ‘Financial Markets, August 2015’ as the new definition for the word ‘volatility’.”
City AM piece
Increased regulation Possibly of more immediate concern among financial services professionals looking for jobs within the sector are the increasingly stringent rules and regulations brought in since the financial crash of 2008.
In a slightly earlier
City AM article, Papadopoullos cites a recent survey by Interim Partners, a global provider of senior interim executives. It indicated that 62% of finance professionals polled feel the rules are negatively impacting the UK’s standing and attractiveness as a global financial centre.
Interim Partners’ Angela Hickmore says: “There’s a real concern among senior executives that we have now reached the point where these stringent controls are starting to put the banking sector in particular at a significant disadvantage on international terrain. The level of regulation cannot come without a cost.”
City AM article