How many layoffs in financial industry?

Number of layoffs in banks: classified

“Banks usually keep this information as confidential as possible. It would be a low blow for their image, or even more, they would be in peril if the news spread out. It would mean it is vulnerable and people would start withdrawing their savings from it”, head-hunter George Butunoiu told Wall-Street.

As there is no report with edifying data on staff fluctuation in financial sector, HR experts and recruiters have different opinions when it comes to estimating a percentage of the number of layoff.

According to Loredana Ladunca, manager of recruitment company in financial sector, LCL Financial Recruitment, nearly a third of the employees of the market were downsized. “It is hard to estimate a percentage of all laid off employees, but in financial sector, it would be around 30-40%”, said Ladunca.

Another specialist in human resources, Dana Pascu, managing partner at HR Business Consulting, says the reductions in the field make up a minor percentage of the market’s workforce.

“However, I expect to see reorganizations, outplacements and a reduction of marketing workforce in the financial companies, under the pressure of rising costs and dwindling revenues of this year”, he pointed out.

Entry level pay shrank by roughly 50%

Marian Manolache, senior consultant of Skill Team – Human Resources Company said that any company he was working with was not making any reduction in their financial divisions. “In banks or financial institutions, we’ve seen redistributions of delegations or portfolios that we could tag below 1%. We do receive many applications from banks’ employees, but this is the result of a poorly managed panic situation at the respective bank”, he stressed.

According to Loredana Ladunca, the pay packages offered by employers in financial industry dropped dramatically. “The entry level salaries have halved. For an accountant, you could get even 800 euro net pay, but now, you can’t negotiate for more than 400 euro. For middle and top management positions, it is not actually a reduction of the pay package offered. They fell by 10-15% at the most in case of middle management positions”.

One of the reasons, Ladunca notes, for the stagnation of salaries in middle and top management is the market’s trend to lag in a waiting mode. Thus, managers prefer to keep the employees they really need, and to motivate them by maintaining the salaries in order to preserve the quality of their business.

“Muddle through and start making money”

In financial sector there are companies who prefer to discharge a part of their employees to avoid reduction of others’ salaries, and companies who cut pay packages by 10-15% for the entire staff. Those who keep their employees, Ladunca explains, are the state-owned institutions and companies, while multinational firms and entrepreneurs find it easy to let go a part of their personnel.

“In case of multinational companies, the words of the day are efficiency and “let’s muddle through and start making money”. That’s what happens because all employers toil over with solutions to weather crisis without affecting quality or decrease productivity”, said Ladunca.

The most sought-after jobs are internal auditor, tax manager and accountant. With a bearish stock market, stock market brokers and loan brokers are the least popular jobs at this moment.