The growth in payroll jobs in banking and finance is baffling.
Up 0.6 per cent in the middle two weeks of October alone, making finance the top-paced industry at 6.5 per cent jobs growth over the year since 17 October 2020, the Australian Bureau of Statistic reported yesterday. The full-year number is at least a step down from payroll jobs growth of more than 10 per cent over the year to August.
This growth rate beats public administration, which includes health.
There are many strands to this job growth, including regulatory demands.
During the first 12 months of the pandemic, the financial services industry hired
6000 new information technology professionals “to support a massive shift to digital delivery,” Deloitte’s analysis of the full year bank results for major banks points out, even if personnel expenses (at A$21.5 billion for four banks) fell slightly.
Onshoring has also become common across the pandemic, and as APRA has noted, the ratio of personnel costs to operating expenses (a metric often of little note) ballooned over Covid.
The “Australian fintech sector is creating jobs” the sixth annual EY FinTech Australia Census shows, if vague on sector employment levels.
Despite a wave of new entrants joining the sector in the last year, this year’s census found fintech industry employment continuing to increase, with a median of 21 full-time employees, up from a median of 10 full-time employees in 2020.
The pandemic has also seen a shift to self-employment and start ups, especially in financial advice and mortgage broking.