More than 400 finance jobs lost
Saturday 3rd April 2010, 2:58PM BST.
Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur
MORE than 400 finance industry jobs were lost in 2009.
Most of the jobs were replaced by new positions in wholesale and retail sectors, leaving private sector employment flat overall.
But 140 public sector jobs were created or filled last year, so overall employment was slightly up on 2008. This means that the States workforce, not including ‘trading areas’ like Harbours and the Airport, is up to 6,790 and that the States employ roughly one in eight workers.
Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur said that the majority of the public sector jobs were vacant positions being filled (100), rather than new posts created (40).
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MORE than 400 finance industry jobs were lost in 2009.
Meantime firemen and teachers are threatening to strike as their 2% pay rise for this year and next is not enough.
Wakey, wakey.
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That’s 400 finance jobs that have been recorded, My wife and I could think of several companies that have shed jobs in the past 12 months. Some of those were not notified to the the authorities.
RBC (20+), KB (30) and Ansbacher (33) have made people redundant in the past 6 months, though in reality RBC have disposed of in excess of 100 jobs over the past 12 months, many of those were contractors who have been reemployed in India.
In the meantime public spending goes up rather than down as promised recently.
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Realist, I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make. Anyway 400 jobs out of around approximately 16,000 in comparison to the hit London and New York took is not disastrous. It could have been so much worse.
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anti moan, we are not london or new york (thank god).
to have a large amount of unemployment, in such a small island , is a bit of a problem, 400 plus new jobs, will not be created over night, yet still we allow any one to arrive and take up employment.
i for one do not belive that we are out of the woods yet, and still expect to see more of the same.(hope i am wrong).
the wage drop from working in finance, to wholesale(pick and pack?)to retail(shopwork?)
must be akin to jumping off the empire state building.
yes something is better than nothing, but to cut ones earnings in half must be so depressing, if not a total disaster, if having large out goings.
how close to wind of “en -desastre” will people sail.
no offence to those working in wholesale and retail.
sale
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Chief Minister Terry Le Sueur well done on using numbers to give a positive TWIST on things!!!!!!
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OK, it is newsworthy but we’re talking about 2009. With technology being what it is I would have thought we could be having a meaningful discussion about last quater/month’s figures.
Such technology would also permit a more thorough indication of part-time to full-time shift and maybe also the value of those jobs.
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400 jobs ?
I have every faith in our Leaders, to lead us onto the path where everone shall have their fill.
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@ anti-moan, try telling that to someone who was included within that number, who are now wondering how they are going to pay their mortgage.
400 is the official figure, I would bet my dole money on it being many more than that.
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Anti Moan hasn’t anyone told you all things are relative?
Population of South East England (where city workers come from) at least 20 million
This is 200 Jersey’s population of 100 thousand therefore 200 times 400 is 80000 do who is worse off!
Just to help you Jersey by a factor of 5
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Anti Moan, you really need to look at the comparative situattions and not the absolute one.
The South East Metropolis in Enland (where the City of London workers live) has a population of well in excess of 20 million whereas Jersey has only 100 thousand i.e. 200 times larger therefore 400 jobs lost in Jersey equate to 80,000 in the London environs.
Comparatively our job losses are 5 times worse!
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Yeah and now most of them are having to recruit because they are understaffed.
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Surely this is good news. Less of the socially useless finance jobs and more of the public sector roles where people actually contribute to a society’s wellbeing and where the staff are driven by more altruistic sentiments than just money accumulation till they retire.
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Ade, don’t let the facts get in a way of a good story! Just to enlighten you the Centre for Economic and Business Research released figures that from the beginning of the recession in 2007 to the end of 2009 16% of wholesale finance roles were lost in the UK. If we were talking about 16,000 finance jobs at the peak over here then that would equate to nearly 2,600 jobs. Jersey Finance industry 5 times worse off then that would equate to 13,000 finance jobs lost over the course of the recession? Lets hope you dont work in a role which requires any competence with numbers!
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I would have thought that the poignant thing in this article was that 40 jobs had been created in the public sector!
Whilst the private sector tighten belts, streamline processes, freeze wages and make people redundant the States can somehow still find the money to employ 40 new people!
Explain that one.
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what planet are you living on?????
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Sarah Clark I was pointing out in the fallacy in anti-moan’s argument nothing more.
You changed the basis of the argument -let us hope following a logical thread is not part of your job!
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As I keep saying diversify from finance before it is too late. This should be sending warning bells to all in Jersey. By all means keep you heads in the sand and hope it goes away, but I think this is a foolhardy thing to be doing. Don’t say you haven’t been warned!
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@ Jack Jones, socially useless finance jobs ultimately help to pay for those public sector jobs trough their taxes. Without those jobs, no taxes, less in the way of public sector jobs and therefore higher unemployment.
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Adrian #18
Yes, diversify from finance, but what to? What would you suggest?
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The problem is – those 400 are just the start !
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400 is not enough, let’s get rid of this industry it is ruining us !
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One minute we are told that civil service jobs are going to be cut, and when Terry has the perfect opportunity to reduce the payroll by 100 positions, not only are all of these filled, he also recruits an additional 40! This man (and his ministers)talk with forked tongue!
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12 Jack jones
Be careful what you wish for……the more finance jobs lost the more highly skilled and highly qualified jobseekers on the market…..probably a lot more qualified for those already in their cushy public sector roles.
You may find that the finance workers are more efficient, hard working and ambitious than your average public sector worker ….. who may be replaced as a result!
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Jack Jones is probably a wind-up. Hence the monicker, firebrand union leader back in the day who believed in nationalising all the commanding heights of the economy. I think MI5 had files on him amid fears he was actually working for the Russians.
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#23 BS Deluxe “You may find that the finance workers are more efficient, hard working and ambitious than your average public sector worker ….. who may be replaced as a result!”
You may also find that, having lived in cloud cuckoo island during the good times, they will have inflated expectations with regard to salaries and bonuses!
They may well need to form a union to safeguard their interests.
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C Le Verdic 25
Re: “They may well need to form a union to safeguard their interests.”
I couldn’t agree more, there’s safety in numbers!
A group has far more protection against ‘rough treatment’ than an individual.
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Well done number 12! Of course finance jobs will go, no industry lasts forever and they have been lucky it has been so good for them for so long! Perhaps they will now have to count pennies evry month like the rest of us!
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Actually Ade (16) she completely wiped out your two posts with some facts. If we believed what you said, then 80% of Jersey’s Finance workers are supposed to have lost their jobs and we were 5 times worse off than the Uk finance industry. So far the job losses over here have been modest but that’s not to say there aren’t more to come. Same as the UK where Finance jobs are still being lost despite unemployment figures flattening out at a national level.
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Ben Short
Read my posts carefully and I did not say what she alleged.
I merely said that 400 jobs lost in Jersey is the equivalent of 80,000 being lost in the SE England area if we pro rata according to population.
The figure quoted by a previous poster was 16,000 in the SE London area and therefore our comparative rate is 5 times worse than that stated.
This may be a difficult concept for you to grasp as well as Saraah’s difficulty in following a logical thread of argument but I blame it on the poor standards of literacy and numeracy in our schools today and an adherence to Wikipedia!
BTW I do work with figures hold a science degree and I am professionally qualified.
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What do these figures tell us – absolutely nothing!! I think were all aware that more than 400 jobs were lost in the Finance Industry, but how many more – that is the question, possibly double this figure – taking into account all of the smaller companies that closed, whose figures are not reported. The Public sector jobs that have been “created” are of little consolation to people who have been previously employed in the finance industry because a) there are so many people with experience in this field chasing these jobs already and b) they are unable to live on the drop in salary such a ‘career change’ would necessitate. Sorry but the ‘positive spin’ doesnt wash!!!
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