It’s an anomaly, considering the state of our economy.
With news of our economy and the job sector both in slump, it definitely poses a worrying thought for both those already in the workforce and those who are about to enter it. But it seems like there is good news for the fresh graduates out there – there is still a glimmer of hope for you in the financial and insurance sector.
The strong hiring in this sector sure is an anomaly, considering how retrenchments were up to its highest level last year since the infamous global financial crisis in 2009.
The same goes for unemployment, although still on the lower side, it crept up to 3 per cent for citizens and permanent residents.
Our banks are still continuing to hire and expand their headcount despite the rise in digitisation of the banking sector. It may come as a surprise to some, but the number of employees in the financial sector was a big jump of 14 per cent, the highest across all industries.
Standard Chartered bank took on 1,000 new employees, boosting its Singapore staffing to 8,000. Other banks that were open to hiring include Citi, DBS and Julius Baer. These vacancies were mainly for sales, technology and compliance roles, with fewer opportunities in the areas of wealth managements and frontline managers.
Dubbed The University Of Banking
Fresh business graduates who often look to Citi for their graduate programmes can now expect a higher chance of entering. Citi plans to hire about 200 odd graduates this year and even accepting 50 more applications for their highly selective full-time analyst programme.
Citi is also a sought-after employer for fresh graduates. The bank received close to 5,000 applications from fresh graduates this year for its graduate programmes.
DBS on the other hand, is looking to support their digital initiatives, more specifically for app developers, user experience designers and data scientists.
With all these new hires, you would expect their staff costs to be through the roof. But surprisingly, that hasn’t been an issue. In fact, most banks managed to reduce staff cost just by placing them in cheaper locations and having a tighter rein on costs such as travel.
While banks still remain to be a major source of employment in Singapore, the rest of us who aren’t looking to manage a hedge fund will continue to hope that the employment landscape will look up for us.