September marked a surge in financial services recruitment, but is this a sign of lasting growth, or simply the result of the yearly surge brought about by graduate recruitment programmes?
According to the latest findings from pre-employment screening firm Powerchex, there has been a dramatic increase in recruitment activity in the financial services sector in September.
The research highlighted the 51% month-on-month increase in employment offers from investment management firms between August and September. Hedge funds also recorded a 30% increase on the previous month and have increased recruitment levels by over 200% since June.
According to the research produced by Powerchex, there has been a steady rise in recruitment activity across all industry sectors throughout the third quarter, with the exception of stockbrokers.
Offers to IT contractors within the sector have increased by 77% on Q2, while investment management and insurance firms increased recruitment by 5% and 3% respectively.
Nick Price, managing director of Bright Purple, notes that these statistics might not tell the whole story however “September is a typically a very busy month for recruitment professionals in general, but particularly in the financial services sector due to it marking the beginning of recruitment for many graduate programmes among financial institutions. Therefore, figures for September have to be looked at closely and tracked over the following months to determine if there is actually an emerging trend, or whether the rise is simply due to the annual anomaly of graduate programmes."