The financial services recruitment market will experience hiring volumes similar to 2011, according to recruitment consultancy Robert Walters, although certain roles are set to be in high demand.
The thirteenth Global Salary Survey found that due to volatile financial markets, it was difficult to make predictions about the short-term future.
Robert Walters director of banking and financial services Andrew Hanson said the financial planning industry is actually experiencing a significant number of jobs.
“As things stand right now, there are more jobs than experienced individuals to fill,” he said.
“It would be one of the largest volumes of roles that we’re seeing coming through at the moment [although] they’re not necessarily easy roles to fill because businesses are looking for individuals with a book of clients, for example.”
Opportunities will emerge off regulatory change and compliance, Hanson said.
“On the compliance side we’ve had a lot of roles come through because of Future of Financial Advice regulations that are being implemented, both from a contractual and permanent basis.”
Hanson also foresees more jobs due to the United State’s new Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), which from 2013 will directly impact Australian businesses, particularly financial planning firms.
“With FATCA, everyone’s interested to see how it will make an impact,” he said.
“There’s a lot of organisations that don’t know enough about it but we see that as an opportunity from a recruitment perspective because firms are going to have to gear up to be ready.”
Operational roles are reducing their headcounts while business development and sales roles within retail and corporate banking are coming through. The superannuation industry also continues to be unabated.
“Nobody’s looking to massively increase their number of heads in operational roles because they’re non-revenue generating. However whilst technology moves forward the implementation of that technology to ensure an organisation is efficient will see opportunities there for both contract and permanent workers,” Hanson said.
The survey said salary movements will again be more dependent on specific demand for skills rather than a general market increase. Salaries for strong product control professionals will most likely increase due to the lack of talent in the market.
