HONG KONG: Hong Kong's banking and financial industry that was traumatized a year ago, with thousands of layoffs due to the global economic recession, is on the road to recovery with 74 percent of employers in the sector saying they plan to increase staff this year. That's a huge gain over the 16 percent that described themselves as in the market for staff in the first quarter of 2009. Credit goes to the rebounding economy.

The figure emerges from a quarterly report by Hudson, a global recruitment company, and is based on a survey carried out in November. The report polled 500 key executives of multinational organizations with operations in Hong Kong.

The survey shows optimism is running highest in Hong Kong among all cities and regions. That's revealed by the fact that 53 percent of respondents from all sectors in Hong Kong say they are hiring. But the banking industry hit hardest by the recession is bouncing back the most strongly.

"The banking industry bore a direct impact from the collapse of Lehman Brothers," said Joe Lai, vice president of the Finance Professional Committee of Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, who added that "dozens of people working at front desks of the sector were fired every day of every month. The worst case I heard of was that over a hundred people (at one company) were fired in October and November of 2008."

"We can now see a lot of job advertisements released by the banking sector and it is putting more resources into the coming quarters of the year," he noted.

Edmond So, general manager of Besteam Personnel Consultancy Limited, observes that while the recovery is underway, the banking sector has a long way to go before it gets back to the way it was before the recession - a forecast that will provide little solace for recent graduates.

"Thousands of staff were let go at some consumer banks like Standard Chartered and HSBC. The situation was worse in investment banks and personal banks. Now they are hiring only hundreds," said So, who noted that "as they have more candidates to choose from, they are now looking for people with experience and related qualifications instead of taking fresh graduates without experience."

The Hudson study also reported about 85 percent of respondents in the banking and financial services sector expect to pay year-end bonuses. That's the highest percentage among all sectors.

"Although the financial sector was the most severely affected by the economic turmoil, it also is showing the quickest rebound," said So.

The survey also showed that employers are striving to retain key staff and to attract talented recruits. Yet employees with stable jobs may not be ready to change their jobs at this moment.

"The whole picture of the economy is still not stable and I don't want to change my job now," said Charles Yeung, 26, a buyer working in an electronics company that hired him after he was laid off in June last year by a logistics company. Yeung was quick to add that, being satisfied with many aspects of his new job, he'd like to remain there: "The culture of the company and the social environment makes me want to stay where I am".

(HK Edition 01/22/2010 page1)