As Barclays starts its high-profile purge of investment banking jobs, spare a thought for the firm’s support staff in Singapore, whose roles are also being cut and who are already calling recruiters to scope out opportunities elsewhere.
Barclays announced plans in May to trim 7,000 investment banking jobs globally by 2016 and reports suggest that 100 of these roles have been cut in Asia this week. The bank has also suffered several high-profile front-office departures in the region, including Jason Rynbeck, vice chairman of M&A for Asia Pacific, who left to join HSBC.
While much attention has focused on the front-office, within the past week back-office roles in Singapore – where Barclays currently employs about 3,000 people, its largest workforce in Asia – have also been cut.
“Most of the new layoffs in Singapore have actually been IT and operations focused, with some roles being offshored to India,” says a recruiter with knowledge of the bank, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Finance people were lucky this time round but I suspect there will be more cuts coming in the next few months and finance may be next on the list.”
“There is a constant reduction-in-workforce going on and people are paranoid about getting a tap on the shoulder,” he adds.
Finance recruiters in Singapore have noticed a recent increase in enquiries from Barclays employees, especially those at VP to director level, who are worried that their jobs will be made redundant.
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“Barclays are top-heavy in operations and people have already started picking up the phone to be ahead of the game when the tap comes,” says the anonymous recruiter. “But there are few jobs for senior ops people in Singapore – RBS is closing down units, Standard Chartered has some vacancies but not senior ones.”
As we’re reported recently, although global banks are hiring in internal audit, compliance and operational risk, they have been offshoring process-driven IT and operations jobs away from expensive Singapore for the past two years.
“Only at the junior level do roles exist in operations; anything VP and above is hard to come by,” says Kyle Blockley, co-founder of recruiters KS Consulting in Singapore. “Singapore now has a mature job market similar to London or New York. Most hires are replacement ones and only get filled if the bank doesn’t have offshoring plans. The contracting market is growing as that’s the only way to get people through the door.”
While Barclays may have too many expensive, senior back-office people in Singapore, it still appears committed to gradate recruitment. Earlier this week it launched Singapore’s first investment banking “apprenticeship” programme targeted at polytechnic graduates, which it’s running alongside its university-based scheme. “Barclays will always be a substantial employer here at grad and junior level, despite all the current restructuring,” says the anonymous recruiter.
The first cohort of 11 apprentices have already been recruited and will work full-time in entry-level positions, in business units including operations, human resources, finance, and sourcing, according to a statement from the bank.
Barclays has recently consolidated its office space in Singapore, giving up two stories in the Marina Bay Financial Centre and closing suburban operations centres in Changi and Tampines.
The British bank has not yet responded to a request to comment on its Singapore restructuring. Wealth-management recruiters in the city state say Singaporean private banking roles remain safe from the cuts.
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