Hiring levels to increase in SA banking

There will be no domino effect, recruiting experts say. Standard Bank's decision to sack over 2,000 employees will not be followed by other South African banks and sentiment in the sector remains optimistic.

"We are still positive," says Mike Atter, associate director of recruitment consultancy Robert Walters South Africa. "Standard Bank's announcement seems to be an isolated occurrence amongst the big local banks."

The decision on large-scale retrenchments by the continent's largest bank "was very much based on Standard Bank fundamentals rather than market problems and other banks will not follow suit," says Debbie Goodman-Bhyat, MD of Jack Hammer Executive Headhunters in Cape Town. "The bank had accumulated levels of fat in their management structure and are now going through a purge, but they will then go back to growth and recruiting. There is no market crisis and no doom and gloom."

Anton Apps, director of the eponymous international recruitment firm, agrees: "Rationalisation can be a good thing," he says. "Standard did it years ago after the Nedbank hostile bid and it cleaned out the sub-optimal performance and led the bank onto a new growth path with quality leadership. Now they have done it again to trim costs and eradicate duplication."

Robert Walters's recent market update on South Africa is upbeat: the larger banks "are hiring across specific areas in line with optimism for the year ahead. Candidates with specific industry and role knowledge have been in great demand, particularly across risk, compliance and group finance," while "a number of international banks see expansion into Africa as an area of growth and, as a result of this, we expect hiring levels to increase as newly created teams require additional staff."

Professionals with three to five years' experience are particularly sought after in the financial services sector, says Atter, and are usually required at senior management level. Many candidates tend to receive multiple job offers and there is strong competition for talent:

"Demand continues for the best people in the market"

Rating agency Moody's has added to the positive mood by upgrading the South African banking system's outlook from negative to stable, "reflecting the improving macro-economic conditions that will likely have a positive impact on the sector's credit performance."

In fact, "improved operating conditions are already having a positive impact," says Constantinos Kypreos, Moody's senior analyst. "Lower provisioning costs will likely improve net profits in the coming quarters, while credit growth has turned moderately positive and the sector's balance sheet is solid."