Scots finance job market in rude health
According to the authoritative Bank of Scotland Labour Market Barometer published this morning, Scots companies posted a reading of 62.0, which the bank says signals an improvement in job market conditions in the country.
In addition, the latest quarterly survey from Scottish Financial Enterprise (SFE), compiled by consulting group Capgemini, found that between April and July 2006 61% of financial services companies saw a rise in business volumes and four out of five saw an improvement in business levels compared with the same period in 2005. Encouragingly, nearly half of all financial firms surveyed reported a rise in employee numbers over the quarter, while just 3% said they had made staff reductions over the period.
Looking forward, more than one third of businesses told Capgemini that they expected to increase their staffing levels in the third quarter of 2006, a prediction which is supported by anecdotal evidence from Margaret Dyer at the Edinburgh office of Scottish financial recruitment firm Joslin Rowe.
Dyer says: "The market is good and companies are continuing to hire as we ourselves predicted in our own report at the beginning of the year. There are plenty of jobs across financial services: in Glasgow, new business is coming from the life and pensions sector, and in Edinburgh it is mostly investment operations."
