eFinancialCareers

It’s still not on the same scale as Wall Street, but Australian banks are catching the job-cutting bug. Mergers, restructuring, IT outsourcing and the financial crisis are combining to create a bleak Q4 for finance-sector employment.

Macquarie is said to be planning cuts and internal redeployments in its property and real estate divisions, due to lack of deal flow in recent months.

A banking sector expert, who asked not be named, explains: “Macquarie has been making cuts quietly for the last few months from IT, property and other areas. Unlike the other banks, they don’t make public announcements and keep it all very quiet.”

But don’t expect Big Mac to become the next Babcock & Brown. “I think Macquarie is taking the opportunity to streamline – it's not a case of a sinking ship.”

Over in the retail world, Westpac’s merger with St George will lead to job losses, mainly in the back office and head office. Although some put the final redundancy figure as high as 2,000, numbers have not yet been confirmed.

More than 40 senior bankers have been sacked from ANZ in the past few weeks, as the firm restructures its management layers. And the bank now says it's planning 500 more redundancies to cushion the impact of the financial crisis. NAB is laying off 179 IT staff, in addition to the 264 cuts announced earlier this year.

CBA has so far limited layoffs to its premium business services division, but other jobs could be on the line as part of a cost-reduction exercise revealed last month, which will see about AU$370m, or 5%, slashed from its outgoings.

“Confidence in the employment market has definitely been hit,” says Patrick Everest, a partner at Jon Michel Executive Search. “It’s been a challenging back half of the year and people are looking forward to Christmas.”

Everest adds that job seekers are becoming even more cautious. “For candidates who are currently in roles, there must be a compelling case to consider a move. Either a significant promotion, a different/more interesting role or pay rise – which generally aren’t happening at present.”