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Job trends in banking and finance continue to evolve as different factors, such as technology and candidates’ needs, play a role.
“One of the things that we’re seeing is that financial services as an industry itself is growing. If you look at data from the Department of Commerce, there’s a growth of 2.8% in financial services jobs from the previous year,” Maria Gonzalez, senior vice president, head of talent and employment at Amerant Bank. “An industry that was pretty small, it’s significantly growing in our state. The areas of concentration for employment in banking and financial services, I would say, mostly what we’re seeing is in the tri-county area – Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach – Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.”
Although there has been growth, the number of applicants per job isn’t enough to fill the demand.
Active candidates are being presented with multiple offers at once, said Ms. Gonzalez. It’s competitive.
“There’s about a 50% ratio of available candidates per job openings,” she said. “We’re seeing a lot of positions and not enough candidates to get them filled, and that’s why we’re seeing people with multiple offers…. In Florida, there are 53 available workers for every 100 open jobs in financial services.”
It is true that financial types of businesses have come from the Northeast, said Ms. Gonzalez. In her opinion, this has both helped and hindered the employment situation.
“It’s hard from the perspective that we already have a small candidate pool, and by having other businesses enter our space that becomes even more challenging because they have other job opportunities,” she said.
“It has helped in the sense that some of those businesses have brought in their talent in some areas that are more headquarter positions. We don’t have large banks headquartered in Florida, so whenever we need, like risk management positions or big compliance positions, we used to have to go look out of state, so it’s kind of like a give and take,” she said. “But definitely, as far as the labor market is concerned, it’s gotten us pretty tight.”
Other professionals in the field have noticed a shift in Miami-Dade’s banking world.
Several years ago, the county had a trend in non-bank credit intermediation, said Manuel Lasaga, president of Stratinfo and clinical professor in the Finance Department at FIU. Jobs were growing in that area.
However, he said, that has slowed down. Since about 2015, banks have had a persistent strategy to improve their efficiency.
“If you look at the growth in banking in Miami… in terms of credit intermediation – which is basically commercial banks or small community banks – their growth has actually slowed down since basically the middle of last year, and the way I look at it is the margins for banks may not be as high as it was a number of years ago,” said Mr. Lasaga. “Banks are trying to adjust the cost side, and so I’ve seen that in Miami, last year, the number of jobs in banking credit intermediation basically started to weaken somewhat towards the end of the year.”
“Probably,” he said, “I would see very modest growth this year in jobs in banking, the small banks…. Technology has also encouraged banks to invest in some of their processes, using computers, technology, that also put a dent in the growth of back-office jobs in banks.”
Technology has impacted the profession in many ways, from jobs being created to the customers being serviced.
“The type of jobs that are being created are a little different than the types of jobs we used to create,” said Ms. Gonzalez. Digitalization has shifted the conversation and led to a transformation in financial services because of the new generation of customers.
“They like to conduct business electronically; they don’t walk into banking centers,” she said. “So, in order for us to grow, our focus has become more on how do we get data in those touch points that we have with customers, and how do we get the information that they’re looking for to their hands in an electronic format that they can apply electronically.”
Additionally, there is a trend of reaching out to customers according to the state of their lives, said Ms. Gonzalez. “If someone’s getting married, then we might send information about mortgage; we didn’t used to do that before.”
Customers have become more sophisticated due to the access of information, said Ms. Gonzalez.
“We’re seeing a trend of the traditional banker becoming more of a financial adviser, some of them even have two licenses,” she said. “There’s a Certified Financial Advisor license, especially if you’re going to get into wealth management and those other types of products. But we’re seeing more of that direction. In the types of jobs that we’re creating, not so much the old-fashioned retail jobs.”
There are three fundamental activities that are always looked to be fulfilled, said Ms. Gonzalez. One is to develop business, another is to serve customers and the last is to be able to manage risks.
Considering the three fundamentals, she said, from the business development perspective, “we’ve seen a lot of growth in relationship banking, whether it is in the commercial segment in the consumer segment, the financial advisors… data analysts, digital banking specialists, people that manage risk, people that manage the regulatory aspect of BSA and AML, the Anti Money Laundering and Bank Secrecy Act regulatory.”
Similarly, other professionals have noticed an interest in specialized areas.
Compliance has become more popular, said Mr. Lasaga, “particularly with banks that have international operations. So there’s always demand for bankers that have had banking experience, but that have learned a trade, the trade of compliance, particularly, the anti-money laundering in those types of compliance rules. That for many banks, the penalties, monetarily, can be very large. I think that would be definitely one area where someone that’s good and that’s training on that type of function, that will be a growth area.”
On the other hand, traditional jobs in the field have evolved throughout the years.
“There’s others [jobs] that not so much lacking but have … transformed, like the old traditional teller role. It’s now known as mostly a universal banker role, where it’s not only a cash handling transaction but they have responsibility over both doing the teller transactions, but also being a personal banker and open accounts,” said Ms. Gonzalez.
“We’ve been working on this transformation over time, so we’ve looked at ways that we can upskill some of the roles and not have to really make them disappear,” she said. “But I will tell you that a lot of things that were done manually are now automated using a lot of RPA technology.”
Job candidates are also looking for specific factors, said Ms. Gonzalez. At the top of the list is the ability to work remotely or hybrid. A work-life balance is desired. “We’re seeing that this generation of applicants is interested in knowing that they’re working for a purpose.”
Janetssy Lugo
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