Job cuts could send some bankers and brokers to the beach
One of the city's leading finance industry headhunters fired off a gloomy note earlier this week to his clients. 'It's pretty clear that bloodletting is imminent,' said Russell Kopp, who is a managing director with Correlate Search.
Although the industry has had a rough time over the past 12 months and firms have been quietly firing people in dribs and drabs, there is more to come. 'For many employees this will come as a shock - because many of you have been well bid over the past three years.'
Kopp says every time in the past 15 years firms have made significant cuts to their headcounts it has looked foolish six months later, and most firms have been reluctant to cut staff aggressively.
But he says Asian equities between mid-2009 and mid-2011 had one of the biggest bull markets in a generation, with most of this occurring outside the big bulge-bracket firms. Since the global financial crisis, some 25 to 30 new firms have started up. As a result, the industry is still running at very high levels of employment, and something has to give to bring employment down to pre-bull market numbers.
The cuts that are coming mean that, 'with the exception of a few exceptional individuals who will get picked up as 'upgrades', many of those who exit their firms in the near term will either: 1) leave the industry; 2) move down the pecking order, firm-wise; or 3) spend some time on the beach'.