London still hiring despite looming Brexit
(5 February 2019 - United Kingdom) The over saturation of Paris and Frankfurt banking job markets expected to precede the impending Brexit vote has not materialised according to major investment bank job postings.
UBS, Citi, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BAML, Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank are advertising for over 1,500 new positions to be filled in the UK according to analysis conducted of the banking major’s job postings. A mere 301 roles have been listed in France and Germany, representing the two markets forecast to absorb the bulk of the outflux in financial services roles from the United Kingdom as a result of Brexit. Mizuho is one of 45 operations which Germany’s financial services regulator Bafin confirms have landed on Frankfurt as their base following Brexit. Hiring activity so far has fallen well short of the 6,000 financial jobs lobby group Frankfurt Main Finance previously expected to move to Germany’s largest financial centre in the wake of a hard Brexit.
Citi’s new EMEA CEO David Livingstone will be based in London, as will HSBC’s newly appointed global markets head Georges Elhedery, who will relocate from Dubai to London to take up the job immediately before Brexit. Goldman Sachs has recently expanded the role of London-based Richard Gnodde to head of the bank’s international operations while Morgan Stanley has appointed Clare Woodman to head up its EMEA business out of London. As banks automate more processes to cut costs, they are also recruiting more in countries where they can hire skilled workers in areas such as technology and risk management at a small portion of the cost incurred in traditional financial centres. After the UK the second most popular financial jobs market is Poland, where 878 posts are available. Citi and Credit Suisse have advertised 531 roles in Poland between them, compared with an aggregated 36 posts in Germany and 8 jobs in France. Morgan Stanley has 49 vacancies in Budapest, where it opened in 2006 and now employs more than 1,300 people.
“The biggest banks have been nearshoring and offshoring roles from their most expensive centers for the best part of 15 years now, entirely unrelated to Brexit. If they still have jobs in London, it’s because they genuinely need or want those jobs to be in London” said James Murray, a director at search firm Robert Walters.