Jobs boost for finance firms

MORE than 90 percent of financial firms in Hong Kong are looking to expand their headcount in the next three years as a shortage of hands is particularly pinching private banking and insurance, a survey has found.

A mismatch between young people’s aspirations and the actual demand has led to some jobs unfilled and some applicants without a job, the Financial Services Development Council (香港金融發展局), a government advisory body, said.

“Many graduates think being an investment banker is cool and operational jobs are less appealing,” said Joseph Ngai (倪以理), McKinsey and Co’s (麥肯錫咨詢公司) Hong Kong partner who is also a council member. “If they can’t land a job at an investment bank, they’d simply rather not work in the industry.”

He added, “The gap is really around mid-office in some key areas like compliance and risk, especially in growth areas like private banking and insurance.”

The survey was done over the past year. It said 90 firms surveyed are considering hiring an extra 10 to 15 percent staff a year.

Council chairwoman Laura Cha Shih May-lung (查史美倫) said it is necessary to bring in non-local employees to shore up the talent pool, especially as demand from mainland clients continues to buttress the SAR’s private banking, investment banking, insurance and securities sectors.

The council called on universities to engage with the industry more closely to produce job-ready graduates, and urged the government to increase international school places for the children of expatriates.

All these amid recent downsizing by banks and brokerages such as Standard Chartered (渣打銀行), Nomura Holdings (野村證券) and CLSA (中信里昂證券) in Hong Kong and Asia (亞洲).

But Ngai said these were isolated cases in an uncertain financial market and may keep occurring, and that “overall opportunities and demand for talents remain positive”.

He also said the government’s scrapping of an investor immigration scheme would have little impact, as that was just a small part of the industry.

Wing Lung Private Banking (永隆私人銀行) executive vice president Joseph Tam Kim-wai (譚劍偉) said that since growth in corporate and investment banking has slowed in recent years, most banks have focused on expanding private banking.

(The Standard, Adam Xu, 27 January, 2015)