Big Irish banks cancel graduate recruitment

Another sign of just how bad it is within Ireland's banking sector - Bank of Ireland and AIB have cancelled their graduate intake for 2009.

In previous years, Ireland's two biggest banks have been fairly active graduate recruiters, with BoI offering 116 places in 2008 and AIB typically recruiting 70-100 in any given year.

BoI actually took on 98 graduates in October in 2008, allowing 10 to defer there places until this year, but it won't be recruiting any more in 2009. AIB, meanwhile, has cancelled its graduate intake for the second year running.

This, you might think, is self-evident, considering the hiring freezes elsewhere in the business.

However, if you compare it to the UK, figures from the Association of Graduate Recruiters show places in investment banks and fund managers this year were down by 40.2% on 2008. Obviously this is still fairly grim, but banks are still maintaining some graduate intake.

A spokesperson for BoI says the move is "in line with the current climate".

"There's a lot of redeployment in the business so we have to take stock, but it doesn't mean it's on hold for ever," they said.

The bank has shifted over 2,000 staff from its Republic of Ireland retail banking arm to its central support function since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, we understand that AIB has been transferring staff internally to focus on debt and credit management.

Headcount at AIB shrunk by 1,425 in 2008 through natural attrition rather than enforced redundancies.

A spokesperson said: "At the moment, we're focusing on containing costs while ensuring we're not forced to make any redundancies, so graduate recruitment simply isn't a priority this year."