Even with the number of vacancies in the sector in decline, new data shows that the financial services industry is on the move.
A major professional services recruiter recently discovered that October’s employment opportunities in the financial market were a bit thin on the ground in comparison to September’s figures. Now for most this would indicate a startling departure from economic growth and could possibly spell disaster for anyone looking for a position in the sector whether they be a permanent employee or a umbrella contractor, but if you view October’s figures through the lens of year-on-year change, it becomes apparent that we’re on the verge of an amazing market movement.
The truth is that market growth as measured by job vacancies is up by a startling 32 per cent from October of 2012. So yes, there was a bit of a backslide this year from September to October, but overall the financial services sector is positively booming from where it was just 12 short months ago. The only bad thing? With so many lucrative positions opening up in the sector, the competition for these is growing incredibly fierce.
Luckily, there’s just as much upwards activity in wages as there is in job billings. Normally you would expect competition on the part of prospective employees would drive wages down slightly – it’s simple supply and demand – but the financial services sector has kept up with the demand in an uncharacteristic show of, well I don’t know what it’s indicating to be honest. It’s motivating financial workers to flock to the sector in droves, so whatever big time financial firms are doing, it’s obviously the right strategy to employ considering how most other business sectors are suffering under the effects of a rather nasty skills shortage.
Now you can say that of course there’s no skills shortage in the financial services sector – it doesn’t take that much skill to cheat people out of their money, after all. However, while the wag in me is quick to dismiss the ‘skills’ required to work in such an industry as nothing more than a desire to separate people from their hard-earned cash in order to line your own pockets, there’s obviously something else going on here. Let’s hope this new financial services sector has learnt from the lessons of the one that nearly destroyed us just a few short years ago.
