Jobs safe, starting salaries to fall
Despite often feeling the pinch first in tough times, there’s little evidence so far of a slowdown in the accountancy recruitment marketplace.
Recruitment consultant Hays reported upbeat numbers this morning and said accountancy and finance recruitment – in terms of interim management at least - had performed as well in the first three months of 2008 as it had last year.
So while recruitment levels may not fall off a cliff (the big firms have made that mistake before) what I suspect will happen is that we’ll see a correction (don’t you love that word) in salaries.
Another recruitment consultant, Badenoch & Clark, says accountants’ basic salaries rose by an average of 3.7% in 2007.
Qualified staff working in accountancy practices saw bigger increases – a hardly stellar 4% – a figure that trails other industry sectors.
In some service lines, however,I expect there are bigger changes to come.
The talk in the consulting industry, for instance, is that in trying to build their consultancy arms back up in the last few years, the Big Four have been paying up to a third more than traditional consultancies.
There are, I'm told too many people in firms earning between £500,000 and £700,000 for jobs that would probably bag them £300,000 to £500,000 elsewhere. Will the next few months see a shake-out?
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