Swiss banks are finding it hard to fill vacancies as the industry is faced with a shortage of qualified staff. Last year's popular vote to restrict immigration may make matters worse.
Three out of four jobs at Swiss banks and insurers are affected by the shortage, or 61,000 positions, a study by the Employers Association of Banks in Switzerland (AGV) showed.
«The shortage of qualified staff is worrying,» said Balz Stückelberger (pictured above), director of AGV at the presentation of the study on Friday.
Immigration Cap Added Threat
Banks are facing difficulties filling jobs mainly at customer services, research and product development with candidates commanding the right skills. On average, they take half a year to fill vacant positions.
Companies in the industry therefore hire more foreign staff. With the pending implementation of the anti-immigration vote, this way out may yet get plugged.
Relocations on the Agenda
In this situation, the industry may yet relocate abroad business units faced with particular shortages, Barend Fruithof (picture left), the association's president, told finews.ch. Therefore, AGV is in favor of keeping quotas for qualified staff from outside Europe, a reduction of which the government has used to counter the simmering discontent in immigration matters.
Outsourcing is already happening. Both banking giants, Credit Suisse and UBS, have relocated parts of their compliance and IT to Poland, as finews.ch reported.
Neglected Female Pool
The industry has to take part of the blame for the shortage. It neglected the female resource pool, made mistakes in the further education of its employees and saw its image badly tarnished in the financial crisis.
AGV wants to turn the tide, with the focus put on these three aspects. Part-time work should help qualified people come back to work, for instance after time taken to care for children. The offer of part-time positions is increasing, according to Marco Beutler (picture below), member of the AGV board. In a next phase, part time of 60 or 80 percent should become available for managers too, said the head of personnel at Zürcher Kantonalbank.
Banks also want to encourage older staff to stay on longer, with first programs already implemented. A lot can still be done though as 80 percent of banks have no such initiatives in place yet. Apart from older employees, banks will also need to invest in occupational training and try to integrate employees with disabilities.
AGV surveyed 124 institutes for the study, with 60 banks taking part.
