Hiring in financial sector still goes on in Asia

Hong Kong

Asia has stayed resilient against the troubled economies of Europe and the United States, but with Hong Kong's status as a financial hub within Asia, the financial services sector has been inadvertently affected.

In an interview with The New York Times, Matthew Bennett, Managing Director of Robert Walters Hong Kong shared: “There are still pockets of hiring in the Asian financial sector, but it has got a lot tougher in recent months."

Professionals moving out of banking?
Challenges in the job market have also seen job seekers moving into proefssional services like management consultancies or accountancy practices. "However, in most instances these people still work within the broader finance industry," said John Mullally, Manager of the Financial Services division at Robert Walters Hong Kong in an interview with eFinancialCareers.

Mr Mullally notes that making the transition to a non-banking role is not easy and is likely to result in a considerable pay cut. “It is unlikely for most banking professionals to switch industries and receive a salary increase. Firstly, they are probably not bringing a huge amount of domain knowledge to said industry and secondly, bankers are actually paid quite well, in comparison to professionals in other industries.” Those looking to leave banking will also need to retrain.

What lies ahead?
However, there will continue to be career opportunities for banking professionals, just not on the same levels that the industry has been accustomed to. Mr Mullally notes that areas like compliance and risk management remain hot.

Although there may be a trend of even more people moving out of the industry in the near future, this is likely to be triggered by further redundancies, he adds.

“The interesting trend to look at will be how many graduates over the new few years choose to pursue a banking career as it has undoubtedly lost some of its lustre, and graduate programmes will have far smaller intakes.”

Sources: New York Times and eFinancialCareers. Click here and here to read the full articles.