The drip drip approach to financial services redundancies

It seems there might be some slightly underhand tactics being practiced by financial firms in Ireland over redundancies, which means they are largely go unnoticed.

RBS and KPMG have made some high profile jobs cuts, but when the numbers are significantly smaller they largely slip under the radar.

"We're hearing from candidates that they are one of ten people that have been made redundant, who are simply not being replaced," says Andrea Clarkson, manager, financial services, at Premier Group in Dublin.

Figures from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment show that just 380 financial services workers have registered as being unemployed since the beginning of the year.

David Hannon, former manager at Deloitte executive search who now runs Ely search and placement says that financial firms are making cuts where they can.

"Obviously, firms are not keen to shout about redundancies and don't announce them unless they're happening in large numbers," he says. "Two or three job losses a month will probably go unnoticed, but if they're senior people that can be a significant cost saving for the company."

James Hayes, manager of the banking and financial services division at Robert Walters, says Irish financial firms are trying to do more with less.

"If someone leaves an organisation at the moment, they're not being replaced," he says. "This means the work gets spread across fewer people, which obviously increases the responsibilities of those employees who are left over the short to medium term."