Market Resilience

The Risk, Compliance and Legal market has shown resilience this year.  2023 started slowly with weather events and economic uncertainty slowing recruitment.  With these factors now stabilising, the appetite to recruit has increased.  Risk, Compliance and Legal has not seen redundancies and candidates have confidence in both their job security and ability to find employment.

The overall unemployment rate remains very low with experienced professionals having a true unemployment rate of close to zero. This is positive for employees and remains a challenge for business who are recruiting.

It must be noted that it is very unusual to see a tight employment market and an economic “slowing”.  This being the case, we have high hopes of a short-lived technical recession.

Recruitment “Hot Spots”

Banks have largely built Risk and Compliance capacity for many of their current teams, and we have seen a cycle of recruitment across Line 2, then Line 1 and currently there is an appetite for Assurance/ Line 3 positions.  

Private Wealth, the Government Sector, and areas such as the Gambling industry are increasing their teams after recent regulatory scrutiny. The legal industry has been reluctant to add conveyancing roles due to a sluggish property market although through there are signs this is changing. In-house positions are being steadily recruited when they become available with a focus on regulatory reaction.  Legal Practice vacancies remain one of the most challenging areas to recruit.

Changing the Structure of R&C

In several instances, we have seen a re-calibration of where Risk and Compliance sits within corporate businesses. Some institutions have moved responsibilities from business units to a more centralised reporting structure. This presumably changes the emphasis of Risk and Compliance responsibility.

General Labour Market Trends

We are still seeing young people move to conduct their Overseas Experience while employers seeking overseas candidates are finding candidate sponsorship time consuming and costly.  We are hearing reports of candidates switching to Australia from an initial interest in New Zealand due to a convoluted process here.

What’s Keeping Everyone Busy

Find are seeing BS11 projects move to completion, and this is providing a supply of contract resource.  CoFI and Climate Reporting are now a focus for a many.  ESG is exciting as it is starting to broaden out Risk and Compliance opportunities outside of Financial Services.  Many expect the FMA to use their increased funding and ambition to become more active with enforcement - driving expanding headcounts.  Insurance businesses have a focus on a new code and conduct while those in non-financial services are still very much focused on ESG, Reputation and increasingly Incident/Disaster Management and planning.