Barclays' struggle to fill its Frankfurt trading jobs is a warning to banks on Brexit

Remember all those trading jobs Barclays was advertising in Frankfurt in August? Three months later, some have yet to be filled. The bank appears to be struggling to fill rates trading and macro risk roles in particular, although its Frankfurt credit jobs are no longer listed on its own jobs site.

Speaking off the record, one local Frankfurt headhunter said Barclays didn't appear to have appointed many people in the German city. A London fixed income headhunter, also speaking on condition of anonymity said this is hardly surprising:  "It's always difficult to find people in Frankfurt or to move people over there. A British bank like Barclays will find it especially hard to recruit people. - Anyone who switches to Barclays in Frankfurt is exposing themselves doubly to Brexit."

In fact, Barclays has made some Frankfurt hires and changes, but they're junior. The bank declined to comment for this article, but publicly available information reveals that it recruited Maurice Brumme , a recent graduate from the Frankfurt School of Finance who'd been working for J.P. Morgan in September. Brumme is joining in fixed income sales. Meanwhile, Sascha Weil was promoted internally to co-head bank rates and cross-asset solutions in German and Australia, also in September.

There may well be more appointments to come - but not for a while. As we noted previously, German hiring is further complicated by the country's employment contracts. These stipulate that financial services employees have three month notice periods starting from the end of the nearest quarter. In some cases, notice periods are as long as six months. This means that Barclays' new Frankfurt traders might not turn up until March, or even June 2019.

"Even if Barclays found people, they might not be able to get started yet," observes the London headhunter. As banks seek to urgently recruit for their Frankfurt trading floors, he observes that the only option may be to offer more money to London staff to induce them to emigrate to Germany.

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