Picking up expat bankers at a bargain price

Redundant expat bankers in the GCC may not be as keen to hop on the next plane home as recent popular perception suggests. Instead, they are now extending their job search beyond the cosy confines of the DIFC where they're being picked up at discount rates.

Banks in places like Abu Dhabi and Qatar have cottoned on to the fact that opportunities for expats back home are still thin on the ground, and are looking to secure top talent from Dubai for around 20% less, according to a report in the FT.

"Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Saudi are in better shape than Dubai, and people are looking there rather than simply packing up and going home," says Barney Mundell, director and head of Middle East at headhunters JBS Associates. "Packages being offered are lower - a lot of people are out of work and they're certainly not walking away from bonuses - but banks are not making a conscious effort to drive salaries down."

Saudi, in particular, is basking in its new-found reputation as the place to be for expats and is expecting to pick up banking talent at substantially reduced rates, says Peter Greaves, director of financial markets at executive search firm McArthur Murray.

"You have to put any reduction in context," he adds. "For the past 18 months or so salaries have been rising astronomically, and most people have been over-paid - if packages are being reduced by 20-30% then it's simply bringing them back to sensible market rates."

But if recent employment monitors are anything to go by, things are beginning to look up in the City of London and Q2 results from Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan suggest big bonuses are very much back on the agenda. Maybe it's time to catch that plane after all.