Jobs looking good for financial services

Earlier predictions that this year’s job prospects for the financial services industry may plateau have been squashed by continuing strong growth figures in the latest quarterly Morgan & Banks job index.

Earlier predictions that this year’s job prospects for the financial services industry may plateau have been squashed by continuing strong growth figures in the latest quarterly Morgan & Banks job index.

The index reveals that almost half the financial services industry (47 per cent) plans to increase staffing levels, while only 13 per cent have any intention to downsize.

A report in Money Management earlier this year stated employers showed less confi-dence about job creation in the first quarter of 2000 than they had in the final quarter of 1999.

However, Morgan & Banks chairman Geoff Morgan believes the recent figures are in line with what is expected and that strong growth has returned.

“With all the joint ventures around, it has to be very buoyant. There is also the intro-duction of businesses online. There is every reason to be optimistic,” Morgan says.

“There is continuing growth right across the sectors. At one stage, people were predicting that the industry would burn out,” he says.

Morgan attributes the predicted burn out to people loosing confidence in the econ-omy. He says there is no reason to worry.

“There is so much money around that it is very good for the sector,” Morgan says.

“There is now a bigger market for business to business for someone’s financial needs. There is still a lot to be done,” he says.