The Economist has been rude about Scotland's financial services industry, but Aberdeen Asset Management has been hiring
To read the Economist's now notorious 'Skintland' article, you'd think Scotland's financial services industry had died a painful death.
It writes that:
'Edinburgh’s fund management industry, which includes companies such as Scottish Widows and Standard Life, still makes it a financial centre. Yet that bloom is fading too. Since 2007 Edinburgh has slipped from 15th to 37th on the closely-watched Z/Yen ranking of global financial centres, behind Guernsey, Stockholm and Wellington, in New Zealand.'
It is, indeed an ignominious decline. As we noted last month, neither Edinburgh nor Glasgow are quite the financial centres they were. However, this doesn't mean Scotland's financial services industry should be written off.
Aberdeen Asset Management is one of the UK's big fund management success stories and, according to research firm IMAS, is one of this year's big hirers - it added around 20 new people who were registered with the Financial Services Authority (FSA) in March alone. Similarly, Clydesdale's much feared redundancies aren't happening yet (although this may be a merely temporary reprieve given the apparent state of the bank's accounts and predictions that serious job cuts will almost certainly happen once the current strategic review is complete): IMAS's research reveals that Clydesdale only eliminated 3 FSA registered persons in March.
The real problems in Scottish financial services are RBS and Bank of Scotland. Last month, RBS got rid of 52 registered persons (net) according to IMAS. Bank of Scotland (Lloyds) reduced its headcount of registered persons by 387. It's not clear how many of these people were in Scotland, but as long as Scotland's former financial services flagship remains a disaster area, Scotland's banking industry will attract criticism. The Economist suggests you may want to go and work in the energy sector instead. This may not be necessary: you could always try fund management.
