The crisis has no impact on our recruitment policy

This is a first. While in 2008, the French banks were still very excited about the prospects for recruitment, after a 2007 record year (70,000 hires including 30,000 in France by the French Banking Federation), 2009 marks a general return to prudence. Some trades have been affected by a net slowdown in activity, such as asset management and some segments of the Bank financing and investment. Deletions of posts have been announced in several institutions: 735 at Calyon (Cheuvreux and including CLSA), 1,250 at Natixis (Group Caisse d'Epargne - Banque Populaire), 1,000 in the BFI of BNP Paribas. At Société Générale, and reclassifications are planned between front-office, whose personnel will decrease, and the back and middle-office, the support functions and control, where they are expected to increase.

The tone is prudent

Overall, hires remain very important, of the order of 16,000 Commission for large banks (excluding credit mutual-CIC), taking into account the continuation of the generational replacement: of numerous retirements are still expected this year. All surveyed institutions however announce a deceleration in the pace of hirings. Should we see the consequences of the financial crisis Most are not. BNP Paribas, which has lower recruitment prospects of close to one-third to last year, is justified by a decrease in the number of resignations. "Our forecasts are approximately 3,000 recruitment in 2009, against 4,700 made last year." This figure depends on several elements, including the rate of resignation of collaborators. "In economic context, it should be very low this year", says Carole Leroy, Assistant to BNP Paribas recruitment.

"Current recruitments were basically unaffected by the crisis, indicates in HSBC France." They correspond to a reorganization and a plan of development of the activities of HSBC decided in 2008. "At Société Générale, which provides 4,000 hires contract this year in France, against nearly 5.5 in 2008, and 10,000 to 15,000 in the world, against 23.700 in 2008, the tone is decidedly cautious:"we remain vigilant to the economic environment and, if he come to degrade more strongly, we could be led to review this objective downward. ""while focusing on internal mobility", explains internally.

A backup plan

Some networks have stable hirings to Caisses d'Epargne forecasts. "The crisis has no impact on our recruitment policy." "We must always ensure the replacement of the resignations and departures retired which will reach a peak in 2011-2012 not to mention that, since one year, we are looking to power on certain segments of customers such as SMEs, traders artisans and the private management", explains Patrick Moreau, Director of the development of human resources for the Group Caisse d'Epargne. A perspective that does not prevent several regions (Aquitaine Poitou-Charente, Bretagne-Pays de Loire, Normandy...) to initiate plans of deletions of posts, caused by the merger of their local caisses. "But this is not to say that a fund which adopt a backup plan for employment, based on voluntary departures and to the reduction of a number of positions, does not recruit on other professions", nuance Patrick Moreau.

Side profiles, the trend remains the same: young graduates (bac 2 or 3) will be majority and three-quarters of needs related to business, agency but also positions in call centres.