More jobs on the line as markets remain bleak

Australia’sfinancial services sector, struggling under the weight of a continuingly bleak investment environment, will bleed more jobs before the end of the year.

That is the grim prediction of Edmund Gill, the national business director of Hays Personnel, who says the turmoil on the world’s sharemarkets will continue to cast a shadow over jobs in the financial services sector, at least until the second quarter of next year.

“It is a slow market at the moment, the same way it has been all year, basically. From talking to clients, there are going to be a few more cuts by the end of the year, which were always going to be inevitable if there was not an upturn in investment markets,” Gill says.

The warning comes as employees of one of Australia’s largest financial services groups,AMP, have become the latest victims of a tough operating environment.

Earlier this month, AMP announced it would cut around 1200 positions — or 10 per cent of its local workforce — from its banking, financial services and corporate divisions.

The cuts come after a tumultuous period for AMP, which saw the financial service giant come under heavy market scrutiny, mostly as a result of poor performance in its UK operations.

But AMP is by no means the only group shedding staff.

In the last month,Zurichmade some 70 employees redundant from its financial services division as part of a wide ranging restructure prompted by cost cutting, whileInvesco, in a similar move, cut 20 per cent of its workforce.

Add to that the 80 people who were made redundant at the St George Bank-ownedSealcorpin October, as well as a string of high profile departures stemming from the Westpac Bank’s acquisition ofBTand Sagitta Rothschild, and the employment situation in the financial service sector starts to look very bleak indeed.

However, it is not all doom and gloom.

Gill says some financial services employment sectors will begin to pick up in earnest by the second quarter of 2003 as groups gear up for what will hopefully be a more productive year on investment markets.

“Most groups are feeling more upbeat about their prospects for 2003 and they will look to build up in the areas where they may be a little light on,” Gill says.

According to Gill, this is likely to mean strong demand for those, like business development managers, who can be in the front line in the distribution of financial services products when markets do start to pick up.

However, Gill says those most in demand will be financial planners, who have been largely unaffected by the downcast employment market in the rest of the financial services sector.

“If there is a star on the horizon in terms of employment in the financial services sector, financial planning is it,” Gill says.

“It is a boom area and there always seems to be a need for qualified people.”