Financial services employers looking to hire more contract staff

The financial services sector leads contract hiring intentions with a net 20.8 per cent of employers in the sector looking to take on more contract staff, up from 8.6 per cent in the previous quarter, according to the latest quarterly report from recruitment firm Hudson.

The report, "Q3 2015 Hudson Report: Employment Trends", shows permanent hiring expectations in the financial services sector have dropped slightly. A net 18.8 per cent of employers intend to increase their permanent headcount in Q3 2015 compared with 22.9 per cent in Q2.  

(The net figure is the percentage of employers expecting to hire this year, minus the percentage of those surveyed that expect to decrease staff levels.)

The report shows financial services remains one of the stronger sectors (behind sales, marketing and communications and office support) and says that business analysts and 'pure' change managers are in particular demand.

"We are increasingly seeing change managers become a compulsory feature of new projects leading to heightened demand for this role. The need for product focused analysts and process analysts is also set to increase," the report notes.

The report, based on a survey of more than 3,500 employers nationally, highlights a "widening hiring sentiment gap between industries", with "positive conditions in financial professional services counterbalancing weaker conditions across sectors such as resources and mining."

Hiring intentions in the resources and mining sector fell to a net figure of -20.5%  (9.4 percentage points lower than last quarter) while "sentiment is strong in professional services, where net hiring intentions have climbed to 32.6%," the report notes.

Overall, net hiring intentions across all sectors fell by two percentage points to 15.1 per cent since the last quarter.