Insiders keynote: State of finance employment Luxembourg

One of my clients who operate within the Private Equity arena and who have substantial operations/interests in Luxembourg recently asked me to prepare for them an update on the state of the Luxembourg finance market with particular reference to the Alternatives Industry – PE, RE, Distressed debt etc.

I figured that many of you reading this may be interested to hear Greenfield’s conclusions on this subject so would like to share them with you:

Compensation levels since recovery have been firming in all financial and legal sectors in Luxembourg. It has once again become a candidate led market. However we must note the major distinctions of 2014 and that of the pre-crisis conditions to understand today’s market dynamics:

1. Consistency – there is a far greater level of compensation consistency across the market. ‘One- off’ deals where an acquisition is made outside of company and market norms is less frequent.

2. Cost – of staffing has become a far great consideration of our clients today. Companies are not willing to do whatever needs to be done to acquire a particular candidate and we are seeing far less willingness from companies to negotiate at hiring stage.

3. Quality – Luxembourg is now more than ever wrestling with this paradigm. Companies are not willing to accept less than premium candidates. Done are the days of ‘bums on seats’.

4. Value – companies are making less and less hiring decisions on cost alone. There must be evidence that the person going to make the difference. Cost / benefit has become a key consideration forcing firms to on occasions alter their initial job brief to account for differing / lower levels of skill-set, or attracting a candidate with a more favorable level of gearing – experience vs compensation.

If your experiences differ or simply concur with our analysis please do share them.

(This article was written by Courtney Charlton and originally published on LinkedIn)