Best Insurance

Three Times As Hard To Find A Job In The City (05-Dec-2011)

Financial services are one of the main sectors that dominate the landscape of City of London. It is estimated that prior to all the cuts that began, the City used to employ about 350,000 people, contributing to almost 20% of London’s income and 10% of UK’s income.

However right from the start of this year, it has been becoming harder for people in the City to find jobs. The wave of redundancies from leading banks such as Lloyds TSB and RBS has not helped either. Almost about 55,000 jobs have been made redundant by the two banks since the start of the financial crisis. While not all of those job losses have been in the City, it still has a sizeable chunk in these numbers.

As per one of the leading City recruitment consultants - Astbury Marsden, there are now more than 5 people available for any job as compared to 1.7 at the start of 2011. Apart from the unprecedented job loss which has left the City of London with a vast pool of highly talented people, the slower pace of new jobs coming on has also been a contribution factor to this sudden imbalance of vast number of highly qualified without jobs and low opportunities.

Industry figures, numbers from Office of National Statistics both indicate that the average number of months taken by people to find a job is steadily increasing. While there are some demographical variances based on sector of the employer that is making the redundancies, the overall picture remains to be grim.

Stuart Boseley, Director of Best Insurance commented on these numbers and emphasised the need for people to be proactive and cover risks. Stuart added that several insurers have already started excluding some financial institutions and also as soon as any major employer makes an announcement, the employees get automatically get excluded to buy income protection and payment protection insurance. Both income protection and payment protection policies protect people against unemployment and redundancies. Some of the income protection and payment protection policies also cover other common risks of losing income such as an accident or sickness. While it is important to have a loan, mortgage or rent to qualify for payment protection insurance. There are no such qualifiers for income protection insurance. Most insurers tend to cover upto 50% of gross income. While with payment protection insurance, most insurers tend to cover upto 60% of gross income or 100% of mortgage, loan or rent, whichever is lower.