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Australian Enterprise seeks skilled Financial planners.
Despite many banking and financial services doors closing to university graduates in the current global crisis, experts suggest that another may be opening for young finance professionals.
Last year, 73 per cent of graduate positions for those in the banking and financial services were put on the back burner, while some companies have delayed starting dates for graduate recruits. Still others are reassessing the number of graduates they need to take on during 2009-10.
However, Paul Williams, AXA Financial Planning national manager, said although graduates may be at a loss in the traditional job roles for finance graduates, there will be plenty of opportunities in an increasingly emerging financial market caused by the aging Australian population.
“We have around 16,000 advisers in Australia and the average age is 55. One in five practice principals will retire in the next five years. Demand for advice will continue to grow. So unless we’re still attracting new advisers into the industry, there is going to be a gap,” Williams said.
Hays Recruitment’s Jane McNeill says as Australia rides out the economic storm, demand for graduates and trainees in the banking and finance services would pick up again, leaving a critical skills gap in the industry again.
“As we see fewer organisations recruit trainees into the business and train them up, as the market starts to pick up again, that skill shortage we’ve seen in recent years will be pronounced again,” said Ms McNeill.
Wayne Handley, general manger of adviser growth and succession at MLC predicted this growing skills shortage early in 2008, and that there is likely to be an increase in the number of people steering their careers towards financial planning during the economic downturn.
Some critics argue that the high numbers of people moving to Australia may be detrimental during the rising unemployment period, while others debate that the financial contribution migrants add to the community outweighs the effects of a rising population during this tough time.
Senator Chris Evans, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, has said the General Skilled Migration programme would keep the 133,500 skilled migration visas at a ceiling, although his department would review immigration quotas in line with the current economic climate.
Furthermore, given that the output of graduates from Australian Universities over the next 10 years is predicted to fall thousands short of the requirements of almost every skilled and professional branch of the economy, it seems that the combination of skilled finance industry unemployment in the UK, US and Europe coincides with Australia’s burgeoning needs. Thus it seems quite clear that the future of high level, highly skilled migrants is very bright, even though there may be a few hold-ups along the way. As the obtaining of a skilled visa can take several, sometimes many, months, it seems clear that there is no better time than now to make enquiries and set the ball rolling. Even the worst recession doesn’t last for ever and Australia is better placed than most countries to weather the current financial problems and emerge with its prosperity and prospects intact.
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