eFinancialCareers

Although Canadian banks have weathered the economic downturn better than their U.S. counterparts, they're not immune to it.

Later this month, the banks will report their quarterly earnings, and job seekers will be looking for any hint of plans to reduce headcount. Analysts expect Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, which has already announced cuts, and the Royal Bank of Canada to announce writedowns of more than $1 billion (Canadian), according to the Globe and Mail. CIBC in particular has been hurt by its exposure to the U.S. sub-prime mortgage crisis.

"People seem to be more cautious," National Bank of Canada Financial Analyst Robert Sedran told the newspaper. The Canadian economy seems to be cooling and, on top of that, Merrill Lynch's recently announced hiring freeze has job seekers on edge.

So far, employment in the Canadian financial sector remains strong. Data from Statistics Canada shows employment in finance, insurance, real estate and leasing rose 1.6 percent between from July 2007 and July 2008. The Canadian Bankers Association estimates banks and their subsidiaries employed 256,970 people as of last year, an increase of 16.1 percent over the past 10 years. The employment level was the highest since at least 1997.

Full-Time Jobs Swell While Part-Time Jobs Shrink

Statistics for 2007 also show that 77.3 percent of those jobs were full-time, the highest proportion in the last decade. Meanwhile, the number of part-time and non-permanent jobs has declined slowly but steadily: Part-time jobs constituted 19 percent of bank jobs in 1997 and 15.7 percent in 2007, according to Melanie Minos, the association's manager of media relations. "Non-permanent jobs declined from 11 percent to 7 percent for the same period," she told eFinancialCareers News.

Banks account for 1.5 percent of total employment in Canada.

Although the Investment Industry Association of Canada says firms aren't hiring as robustly as they have in the past, recruiters in Toronto say they haven't noticed any slowdown. "They're still hiring," notes Kevin Brockie of Lannick Associates in Toronto. "We are seeing quite a bit of activity in financial services." Among the areas where demand continues to be strong is hedge fund services, where employerso are looking to fill jobs in audit and risk management, and hedge fund accounting, says Brockie. As in the U.S., job seekers are increasingly drawn to hedge funds because they are seen as more stable employers than traditional banks.

"Not a lot of people know about the industry, so they have to do a lot of hiring and training," Brockie says. "Obviously, anyone with hedge fund experience gets snapped up pretty quickly."