Beware the redundant expats of Geneva
Brevan Howard's going there. So's BlueCrest. But anyone thinking of making a hasty exit to Geneva should be warned: not only is there a housing shortage, crowded schools and a 44% income tax rate, there are also a lot of unemployed foreign finance professionals.
Alphaville ran an interesting post this week citing Swisster, a Swiss English language newspaper, which claims foreigners make up more than 50% of the 173,000 unemployed people in Switzerland, despite accounting for only 25% of the population.
Bernardo Aronowicz, managing director of Geneva-based recruiters B-Aron Conseil, confirms there are plenty of unemployed foreign financial services professionals in Geneva.
"30-50% of the financial specialists my company has recruited here in recent years have been non-Swiss, and banks have laid off a lot of people of all nationalities since the crisis began."
UBS cut hundreds of jobs in Switzerland last year. Private banks like Julius Baer have also cut jobs, as have insurers such as Swiss Re and other European investment banks.
Nor are there many options for out of work financiers in Geneva. "It's not very easy to find a job here and I can't see that changing in the next three to five years," says Aronowicz. "For the moment, all this stuff about hedge funds coming to Geneva is pure talk, and if hedge funds do come they will probably move traders and senior staff from London and will only hire middle office and operations people on the ground."
