Financial professionals remain confident

Updated: 2011-10-13 11:52

By Wang Xiaotian (China Daily)

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BEIJING - While the middle and working classes in United States are expressing their disappointment at the economic slowdown and Wall Street greed, Chinese financial professionals remain optimistic about the economy and their job security.

According to a survey conducted by eFinancialCareers Ltd, despite rising global financial uncertainties, finance professionals on the Chinese mainland are more optimistic about the economic situation than their counterparts in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

Fifty-seven percent of mainland respondents said they are optimistic about the economy, in contrast with 35 percent of respondents from Hong Kong and Singapore.

And an overwhelming 88 percent of mainland respondents are somewhat, very or extremely satisfied with their job security, said the global career network for financial professionals under the US-based Dice Holdings Inc.

It polled 952 financial markets professionals from August to September on the Chinese mainland and in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

One hundred twenty of the respondents were on the Chinese mainland. Of those, 26 percent were junior staff, 54 percent middle management and 20 percent senior management.

Almost two-thirds of the mainland respondents said they were somewhat, very or extremely satisfied with their current job.

"Despite the survey's overall positive results, there is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction among finance professionals on the mainland with over a third of them claiming that they are not very or not at all satisfied with their current job. This, coupled with professionals' fear of redundancy as a result of global economic instability, could have a negative impact on the current level of job satisfaction," said George McFerran, head of Asia-Pacific for eFinancialCareers.

But one-quarter of finance professionals on the mainland are concerned about being made redundant. "As economic the outlook blurs, the possibility of a layoff and salary reduction is increasing, especially regarding redundancies at some larger financial institutions," said Vivian Zhang, a marketing specialist at Tian Hong Asset Management Co Ltd.

The mainland job market in the financial industries has been unprecedented white hot this year, said Hao Jian, a senior career consultant at Zhaopin.com, a human resource service firm in Beijing.

"The employers generally feel it's very difficult to fill the positions they have opened this year, so the salaries they offer have been increasing all the time."

According to data from Zhaopin.com, jobs posted for financial professionals increased from 49,111 in January to 64,660 in September. The figure for investment banking declined during that period, while increases in jobs in securities and futures brokerages gradually slowed. The asset evaluation and securities/financial research jobs saw the biggest increase over the past nine months.