Was last year as bad as everyone thinks? Yes and no. The serious changes came with the mergers, lines of business closures and interventions. When all is said and done it was like a glancing blow. Only three banks locally were intervened and in all cases there were limited layoffs. There were a few banks whose parent company was sold and a couple of banks threw in the towel with increased compliance costs and client dissatisfaction. But all in all there were not not massive layoffs, some upgrading, but most of the people made redundant have found something new. Others were forced into premature retirement. For those people 2009 was a disaster and their pain has been felt. Hiring freezes were on almost across the board. On the other hand, good producers continued to be sought after and so were experts in control and compliance functions. Exceptions were made and those people hired. In spite of what was perceived to be a glut of people in the job hunt, finding the right person became no easier. In total, relatively few changes, many less layoffs than perceived and most hunkered down waiting for the right opportunity to come along.

Which brings us to this year… What’s in store for hiring in this financial world? Basically, if you can bring in business you are in demand. Banks are under pressure to increase earnings. They can’t do it simply by cutting costs and squeezing more out of existing staff. In this market, there is a limited amount of plain vanilla business to go around so domestic banks are looking for different flavors such as SBA loans, asset based loans, trade finance and lots of CBI loans, even real estate loans, starting with fresh valuations. Wealth management likewise is under production pressure even with the toxic legislation and heavy handed compliance. This is causing refocusing and attracting different players, especially in the less structured and less regulated segments of the industry. Support jobs are slower to, but will follow while many are being revamped by technology. Every salesperson touts their offering of better service; therefore efficiencies must follow, even if the work is being done in India. Hiring is evident across the board and the inventory of displaced workers is fast evaporating so there are better things on the horizon in the local job market. The further good news is that with increased labor demands comes higher compensation; a welcome relief on the back of the very flat year that we have just emerged from.