Job offers in the financial services sector were down 38% in 2009 on the previous year, according to figures from pre-employment screening firm Powerchex.
The decline stretched across all industry sectors, with investment banking the worst affected, suffering a 56% decline in offers. Stockbrokerage firms handed out 21% fewer offers last year, while hedge funds saw a 23% decline and insurance company offers were down 28%.
“These figures should not come as a surprise to anyone. The sector has gone through the worst battering in 60 years and firms responded accordingly by drastically reducing staff. Stockbrokers were the least affected as extreme market volatility boosted the sector’s profits. IT contractors were severely affected as financial firms put major capital improvement and expansion projects on hold or cancelled them altogether”, said Alexandra Kelly, a director of Powerchex.
Despite the overall drop for the year, things started to pick up in the last quarter of 2009. Overall job offers were up 7% in Q4 (compared to Q3), with stockbrokers and hedge funds leading the way with increases in offers of 81% and 65% respectively. Investment banking offers are down 46% indicating the reluctance of investment banking to take on graduates this year.
“Overall there is a significant improvement in job opportunities in financial services,” concluded Kelly. “However, the improvement is not yet propagated across all sectors and finding suitable employment is still a struggle for many job seekers in the sector.”
