Scottish Financial Services Jobs Survey
Since the Millennium Joslin Rowe, in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, have surveyed opinion amongst Scotland's most influential financial services recruiters. Their responses form the annual Joslin Rowe Scottish Review - an analysis of trends within financial services recruitment in Edinburgh, Glasgow and across Scotland.
The main results of this year's survey were:
Encouragingly, 73% of our respondents described their company's level of business confidence for the year ahead as optimistic or very optimistic, and only 3% stated they were pessimistic for 2010 prospects. These results were far better than those we recorded just before the recession and are similar to levels last seen in 2003.
43% of companies made redundancies in 2009, cutting (on average) 10% of their staff. However, 52% of responding companies expect to increase their permanent headcount in 2010 with 82% stating this will be as a result of business growth. The median rise in staff numbers is expected to be up to 5-10% more. Despite this improved confidence, 10% of organisations expect to make further cuts of up to 5-10% staff, mainly as a result of offshoring and outsourcing.
Despite the recession, and the supposed amount of available talent flooding the market, 35% of our respondents still experienced difficulties in recruiting staff during 2009 - ten percentage points higher than last year. In fact, nearly half, said their current staffing levels were too lean to manage a significant increase in business volumes. 13% of financial services firms felt their employer brand had suffered since the credit crunch, making it harder to attract staff.
Only 8% of respondents indicated retention problems in 2009 - as employees opted for a ‘better the devil you know' career plan. Of those companies who did experience difficulty, team members and team leaders were cited as the hardest to retain. The average length of staff tenure was 5 years. A number of organisations were forced into a rethink of their benefit provision because of the tighter economic climate. Flexible working was a popular scheme to initiate as firms turned to the cost savings that could be gained from a four day week.
Bonuses too were re-examined and rejigged. As you might expect, there were few salary increases during 2009 - typically just 1-2% for less experienced employees as they progressed and were promoted. Directors, managers and team leaders received nothing. However, pay increase predictions for 2010 are expected to be 1-2%.
