The red hot market for financial planners might have reached its peak, according to the latest figures on job vacancies from eJobs Recruitment Specialists. Job numbers across the country fell by 4.6 per cent in April compared to the same period last year, marking the first decrease since eJobs’ financial planning division began collecting data in August 2004.
Vacancies in Sydney, regional NSW and the ACT decreased by 1.6 per cent. “Although this represents only a slight decrease… this may now signify a drop in job growth and a shift away from the long period of ‘excessive candidate demand’ that we have experienced to one of just ‘high demand’, ” says Trevor Punnett, managing director and financial planning recruitment manager at eJobs.
Punnett says the region is still experiencing a respectable 16.4 per cent quarter-on-quarter increase in job numbers – nationally these figures were 10.8 per cent. The slight drop in advertisements in April appears to be a result of Australia’s tightening economic conditions and market volatility, which have led to a dampening of investor enthusiasm, Punnett notes. “We may start to see some practices reconsider their staffing situations,” Punnett says. “Certainly excessive salaries for non-essential and/or nonrevenue producing staff may now be considered more closely.”
