Australia's financial services job decline highest in APAC - Media Release: eFinancialCareers

Australian financial services job growth still behind rest of APAC:

eFinancialCareers Quarterly Job Barometer

SYDNEY, 16 JULY 2012: Australia experienced a 37% decrease in the number of financial services job opportunities in Q2 of 2012 compared to Q2 2011, according to the latest quarterly Jobs Barometer from eFinancialCareers, the leading global career site network for professionals working in the investment banking, asset management and securities industries. The overall APAC region experienced a less dramatic decline (-14%) over the period, with Singapore and Hong Kong registering decreases of -3% and -18% respectively.

However amidst the conservative hiring environment across APAC, there are some major growth areas: job postings for information-services positions in the region increased by 76% year-on-year in the quarter ending 30 June.

Australia

Whilst annual quarterly comparisons revealed an overall decline in financial service job numbers in Australia, there are some signs of recent stability with a 4% increase experienced in finance jobs posted for Q2 compared to Q1 this year.

Although investment banking jobs remaining quiet in Q2, there were positive exceptions of financial professionals recruitment occurring in Australia’s booming natural resources and infrastructure sectors.

However overall in Australia new vacancies for the period were rare and small-scale redundancies continued to take place, especially in research roles.  Financial planning and superannuation in Australia remained comparatively stable, although hiring was still lower than last year.

“We expect similar trends over the coming months, although a few more opportunities in risk should open up at both banks and consulting firms, thanks largely to the introduction of Basel III,” said Managing Director of eFinancialCareers Asia Pacific, George McFerran.

Asia Pacific (incl. Australia) Top-Performing Sectors in Q2

Sectors in Asia that experienced the highest quarter-on-quarter growth are asset management (28%), information services (26%), and operations (15%).

 

Chart 1: Top-performing sectors in the Asia (Q2-12/Q1-12)

                                 Source: eFinancialCareers

Asset management - Compared to banks, asset management firms have been proportionally less affected by recent retrenchments in Asia Pacific.  Recruitment in investment banking is generally stagnant, with some buy-side firms opportunistically taking on bankers keen for a career change into a potentially more stable, less hierarchical environment;

Information services - During the second quarter, banks put an increased emphasis on risk management and compliance thanks to fluctuating markets and an ever-changing regulatory environment. This had a positive effect on recruitment at information-services providers because financial institutions needed timely data to support their risk-management systems;

Operations - eFinancialCareers witnessed a partial recovery in operations recruitment in the last three months, despite continued off-shoring of roles out of Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong into lower-cost countries such as India and the Philippines. Much of this increase was seasonal with people moving after receiving their bonuses while back-office hiring was mainly driven by a need to replace essential employees rather than by new growth.

Asia Pacific (incl. Australia) Bottom-Performing Sectors in Q2

Equities - Investment banks across APAC continued to cut in equities, especially researchers, as trading stayed relatively subdued. With volumes not expected to return to pre-financial crisis levels in the near future, some firms are re-evaluating their business models and headcounts, which has led to lower recruitment rates;

Trading - With hiring budgets tight in the second quarter, banks were more focused on retaining their top revenue generators than they were on poaching expensive talent from competitors. Although some sectors, such as commodities trading, remained comparatively buoyant, uncertainly in global markets meant there was little desire to invest heavily in expanding trading workforces;

Derivatives - Many investors were still shying away from derivatives in Q2, and hence investment banks were cautious about adding headcount or even replacing employees who left. Continued global economic uncertainly meant financial institutions were keener to expand headcount in bread-and-butter parts of the business – such as transaction or corporate banking – rather than in more exotic instruments. 

The eFinancialCareers Quarterly Job Barometer tracks APAC positions advertised on eFinancialCareers in sectors where there is a minimum level of 150 advertised jobs a month for three consecutive months.  Sectors qualifying for the APAC Job Barometer for the three months ended 30 June 2012 were Information Services, Consultancy, Quantitative Analytics, Compliance / Legal, Commodities, Risk Management, Asset Management, Derivatives, Trading, Credit, Corporate Banking, Sales & Marketing, Investment Banking / M & A, Capital Markets, Accounting & Finance, Operations, FX & Money Markets, Debt / Fixed Income, Equities, Information Technology, Insurance, Private Banking / Wealth Management, Retail Banking.

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About eFinancialCareers

eFinancialCareers, a Dice Holdings, Inc. Service, is the leading global career site network for professionals working in the investment banking, asset management and securities industries. The website provides financial services professionals with job opportunities, job market news and analysis, salary surveys and career advice. Recruiters and employers can post jobs targeting specific sectors within the financial services industry, both buy-side and sell-side, and can search the resume database for highly qualified and specialized professionals. eFinancialCareers has a network of co-branded career sites with industry-leading trade publications and offers local websites in 19 markets and five languages primarily across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Please visit www.efinancialcareers.com.au for more information.

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