BANKING REDUNDANCIES: THE EMPLOYMENT prospects of Ulster Bank staff facing redundancy are "not entirely un-rosy", according to an industry expert.
While the overall redundancy situation is “very negative” for employees, a number of IFSC-based banks are “growing quite hungry for staff” exiting domestic banks, said Pearse Coyle, director of CorporateSpinouts.com.
“The headline position is that the domestic banking situation is absolutely on the floor, but the [international] or export-oriented banking sector in Ireland is stable or growing,” Mr Coyle said.
Ireland is now one of the world’s largest fund management centres. Bank employees who have worked in specific back office-type roles, and functions such as compliance and internal audit, have skills that are directly transferable to fund administration.
Even bank staff without these specific types of experience will make more attractive candidates for fund management roles than “complete newcomers” to the banking industry, he said.
Such jobs are not restricted to Dublin’s IFSC, as fund administration giants such as BNY Mellon have bases around the country. Neither are employment opportunities limited to fund management.
“We’ve been working on programmes with a number of the banks around generating spin-outs that will take up the staff that are leaving,” Mr Coyle said.
CorporateSpinouts.com is also working on programmes that would see groups of bank employees being transferred en bloc to other firms.
He hopes that between spin-offs and transfers, some 5 per cent of banking jobs lost to redundancies can be saved.
It is estimated a total of about 10,000 jobs are being eliminated from the banking sector through a combination of redundancies and natural wastage.
However, although the banking industry is undergoing massive restructuring, employment prospects are not quite as grim as in the retail sector or construction-related areas.
“Without taking anything away from the trauma of losing a job . . . relatively speaking, things are better in this industry ,” said Dr Stephen Kinsella, economist and author of a recent IrishJobs.ie report.
He said that in the IrishJobs.ie database yesterday, over 1,400 vacancies were available in Dublin that might be suited to banking staff.
For instance, more than 300 openings were advertised for the banking, financial services and insurance sector , while 228 positions were available in accountancy and finance.
However, for those considering looking to London’s financial services sector for future employment, there was some bad news yesterday. Morgan McKinley’s London Employment Monitor showed an 8 per cent year-on-year decrease in financial services opportunities in 2011.
