beyondbrics

Jobseekers, take note. The financial industry may be shedding thousands of employees in New York and London, but so far the wave of cuts has yet to crash on the shores of Hong Kong, Asia’s pre-eminent financial centre.

Until recently, the pattern of hiring and firing in Hong Kong’s securities industry was something of a mystery. No longer – thanks to David Webb, a corporate governance activist and an expert in computer coding.

Webb has added a new tool to his eponymous website that allows viewers to track the employment history of every person who has a licence from the Securities and Futures Commission, the Hong Kong market regulator. Viewers are also able to see how the number of people employed by each financial institution has changed over time.

Let’s start with the broadest possible data set, showing the total number of people licenced to work in Hong Kong’s securities industry. The figure stands at an all-time high of 34,868 people. Clearly the woes of the west are yet to show up in Hong Kong, a city that is increasingly a bet on the future of China:

What about everyone’s favourite vampire squid investment bank, Goldman Sachs? Total licensed employees are hovering just below the 2008 peak, though the hiring spree of the last couple of years looks like it has come to an end:

The data for other big global names are interesting. Who knew that Morgan Stanley was the biggest employer of licensed staff in Hong Kong’s securities industry? Take a look at how Barclays Capital continues to expand in the city at breakneck pace.

But not everyone is in hiring mode. The chart below shows the number of people with securities licences employed by La Roche & Co Asia, the local arm of the venerable Swiss private bank:

The bank closed its HK office, telling the South China Morning Post that ”the anticipated synergies between the bank in Switzerland and the company in Hong Kong have not materialised.”

It is a timely reminder that, despite all the hype about Asia’s growth, even the Hong Kong securities industry has its limits.

Related reading:
Hong Kong’s golden bet, beyondbrics
Doing Business in Hong Kong, FT