Working at a Swiss bank is getting less and less attractive. One third of employees working in the industry wouldn't choose to work in finance again, while 40 percent discourage school leavers and university graduates from taking up work at a bank.
The main reasons for this development are the compliance and legal questions that today claim top priority, making the real banking business, working with clients, seem less essential. Add to that the rapid decline of wages and bonuses.
These are the conclusions from the fifth online survey of job prospects in the Swiss financial services industry. The representative survey of 430 people was conducted by finews.ch and Communicators, the Swiss communications agency.
Rapid Worsening of Popularity
The numbers make for sober reading: a little less than half of all financial market employees see their job perspectives as mediocre at best, and almost a fifth think they are downright bad.
As can be expected, 43.7 percent of the surveyed discourage school leavers and university graduates from joining the finance industry. The number has risen from almost 30 percent in one year only. And almost a third of all the employees wouldn't opt for a job in finance again, because they say legal, administrative and technical priorities have removed real banking from being the top priority.
Based on their perception, 45.7 percent of the surveyed say that the prestige of working in finance will decline (36.7 percent) or decline drastically (9.1 percent). Again, the number increased substantially from the 38.8 percent in 2015.
Legal and Compliance Top Choice
For those who still aspire to a job in finance, the following skills are of importance: specialized expert knowledge (63.3 percent), networking capabilities (62.1 percent) and further training on a permanent basis (54.9 percent). The training as an army officer is almost completely insignificant nowadays (4 percent) and social-media skills also are surprisingly unimportant (30.2 percent).
The best chances for a career are to be found in legal and compliance (76.1 percent), followed by IT (62.8 percent). The most recent developments in the fintech industry would suggest that new opportunities would seem to arise there. In typical banking jobs, alternative investments, such as hedge funds and private equity, are top choice (35.8 percent), followed by asset management (35.4 percent).
Back Office: No Go
Back office and administrative tasks are currently losing in importance (according to 67.2 percent), as is investment banking (63.7 percent). Both task today are fulfilled more cheaply outside Switzerland. But even retail banking seems to offer fewer opportunities in the coming five years (47.2 percent).
Some 29.1 percent of the surveyed received an unchanged bonus in the past year, 29.3 percent received a smaller bonus, while 17.7 percent (up from 14.8 percent) got no such compensation at all. The trend to smaller or no bonuses seems clear – confirmed by 72.6 percent of the surveyed. In the case of 4 out of 10 employees, the bonus is equal to 10 to 25 percent of their annual salary.
A majority of 56.3 percent expect that there will be fewer jobs in the industry in five years time. And 20.5 percent see a drastic decline. Only 2.6 percent believe that job prospects in the Swiss finance industry are very good, with 30.4 percent opting for intact and 48.3 percent mediocre. Some 18.8 percent (up from 10.8 percent) said that the perspectives were not to be recommended.
430 people took part in the survey, of which 89 percent were male and 11 percent female. 19 percent were aged 20 to 30 years, 44 percent 30 to 45 years and 33 percent 45 to 60 percent. 4 percent were aged older than 60. A third hold a university master degree and a further 10 percent a master degree from a technical college. 17 percent have a federal diploma. The survey is being conducted annually.
