Financial services jobs surge

Job opportunities in the banking and financial services have surged in the first quarter of 2010, particularly for highly skilled temporary and contract staff, according to the latest Hiring Trends report from Profusion Group.

The quarter showed a 47 per cent increase on the fourth quarter of 2009 in permanent positions across banking and financial services, according to Profusion Group chief executive Rod Jones.

“We are now seeing a situation where candidates are getting multiple offers as companies fight for a limited pool of top talent,” Jones said.

“The advice sector is a case in point. We’ve seen a big increase in demand for advisers, whose numbers were really savaged during the GFC [global financial crisis] but now account for 58 per cent of financial services jobs coming onto our books. Essentially, this represents a full return to the pre-GFC situation when there was also a shortage of talent.”

There was also a marked increase in demand for project managers and business analysts across all sectors, which is leading to sharp rises in candidates’ daily rates. At the same time, the life insurance sector is already seeing a shortage of skilled contract workers, according to the report.

Many expatriate Australians are beginning to return from overseas as the British and European markets continue to lag Australia in terms of a financial recovery, Jones said.

“You could almost characterise this influx of talent as a reverse of the ‘brain drain’ that was causing us concern back in the late 1990s and early 2000s,” he said.

Companies that damaged their reputations by indiscriminately culling large numbers of staff during the GFC may have trouble attracting top quality applicants in the new ‘candidates’ market,” Jones said.