Banks need more people not fewer

Swiss banks need more personnel to fill a variety of positions Keystone

Worries that the Swiss National Bank’s scrapping of the euro peg in January would lead to massive layoffs in the financial industry were completely unfounded, says financial portal finews.ch. Instead, there has since been a rise in the demand for personnel. 

At the end of June, 4,436 job ads were posted in the financial industry, an increase of 7% over the previous three months, according to the most recent job index made public by finews.chExternal link on Monday. In particular, employees were needed for the banking industry, where the number of job openings increased by 20%. 

Driving factors in the increase include the foreseeable end of the US-Swiss tax dispute, the upcoming implementation of automatic information exchange between Switzerland and other countries, and the increasing digitalisation in the banking industry.

Around 25% of the job openings at Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-largest bank, are directed at interns, out of a total of 539 openings at the end of June. Over the past 12 months Credit Suisse’s personnel requirements doubled, said finews.ch, whereas Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS, registered only a 1% increase, with 379 advertised positions. 

Insurance companies, on the other hand, advertised 1,121 positions at the end of June, a 7% reduction from the first quarter of 2015. 

According to finews.ch, the personnel needs of banks increased over the past 12 months in all but one quarter (the first quarter of 2015), whereas the needs of insurance companies have reduced continually since September 2014.