The current economic downtown has caused financial services firm Next Financial to cut almost 30 employees as part of a restructure.
"We had 117 staff members and over the last few weeks we have lost 26 people. Some through redundancies and some through natural attrition. We have also undertaken a hiring freeze," Next Financial deputy general manager Peter Horn said.
Members of the company's three desks; private wealth management, equity services and the dealers group, have all lost staff members in the restructure.
The staff cuts include company secretary Margaret Sullivan and members of the support, technology and sales teams. The redundancies were felt across Next Financial's Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices.
According to Horn, who is heading the restructure team the restructure, was partly a result of the current bear market.
"Clearly we can see that we are in a downturn and we can't tell when there is going to be an upswing. We're just moving early so that we have a solid business that will carry us through the downturn," he said.
There was no indication from Horn of any further job losses.
