Dougs Loan 2010

we all know that the 2007 recession was banking related, with the US market dominated by sub-prime lending debacle, while Europe has had to deal with the sovereign crisis created by the Peripheral EU countries like Greece defaulting on loan from the northern European countries or their banks. While the US has been dealing with the problem, the EU remains a shambles, with 2012 being another point-of-no-return for the EU as a state and whether the global economy will return into recession. Naturally this has an impact not only on the employment performance of these industry sectors, but has an impact on the global jobs market.

While the banking industry was single-handedly fingered with the blame of the latest financial recession that has blighted the world for the last 4 years, surprisingly there has been few reforms of the sectors, and the likes of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs et al continue to operate in the same way as they did before the crisis. Therefore banks are continuing to employ top level employees from IT banking and finance background with a penchant for people with MBA’s. Jobs in banking are being lapped up by people who may have originally worked in non-financial positions but have then gone on to study a financial MBA. Banking jobs like employment in other sectors, is going to be directly effected by what happens in Europe, but regardless of the outcome banking vacancies will remain in the same. Retail banking from 2007 has seen a drop in employment figures as retail banking operations and therefore retail banking jobs were down-sized. What is the prediction for 2012? It is believed that the banks in the UK (and USA)have sufficiently de-levelaged their debt books and scaled back their operations to improve profitability. Merchant banking continues to see very modest growth in employment figures with merchant banking jobs continuing to increase for highly-talented people.

In the accountancy sector, we have not witnessed the same drop in accountancy employment figures as we have in the banking sector. Qualified accountants from South Africa, Australia and NZ continue to find employment in the UK, as the demand for ACAs outstrips the number coming out of the UK. Accountancy jobs may be effected by the potential status change of the UK within the EU, and the EU’s push to tax banking transactions. While banking will be more effected, remember that many accounting people are employed by the banks. Thankfully for accountants though, their skills are required by all industry sectors, so while banking is taking a tumble, there are jobs for accountants elsewhere. Predominately, accountants can find jobs in public sector or in industry. Accountancy jobs and employment is typically very strong in ‘Public sector’ as London remains one of the financial capitals of the world.