The good news for people who work in the banking and financial services industry is that they can expect a stable employment environment over the next six months, according to a report from CareerBuilder and MoneyJobs.com.
The bad news is that many of the new jobs that are being created are only temporary positions that do not offer benefits.
The report, based on a national survey of more than 100 financial services hiring managers and human resource professionals conducted by Harris Interactive, shows that full-time, permanent hiring in the second half of 2013 will match that of 2012.
Temporary and contract hiring, however, is expected to increase 11 percentage points over last year.
In other words, more or less the same number of full-time positions but strong growth in part-time or contract positions.
Conducted from May 14 to June 5, the survey shows that 52% of financial services employers plan to hire full-time, permanent employees, on par with last year. About 26% plan to hire part-time employees, up from 15% last year, while 31% plan to hire temporary or contract workers, up from 20% last year.
‘Along with stable full-time hiring, the financial services industry is seeing a solid increase over last year in projected hiring of part-time employees and temporary workers,’ said Kevin Knapp, chief financial officer of CareerBuilder. ‘Employers are moving forward carefully, expanding their ranks with temporary workers, while holding off on adding permanent staff until they can be sure of the economic recovery. Our data also shows that nearly two in five financial services employers plan to transition temporary workers to full-time status in the coming quarter, reflecting the cautious optimism of the post-recession market.’
The report breaks down hiring by metropolitan and rural areas. Of those financial services employers who indicated they would be hiring in the second half, 84% said they would be hiring for positions in large metropolitan areas, while 30% said they would be hiring in rural areas.
About 37% of financial services employers said they planned to hire full-time, permanent employees in the third quarter, up from 32% last year, while 10% said they expected to downsize their workforce. About 57% said they anticipated no change to head count. About 2% were undecided.
