Is your Job in Banking at risk

Job In Banking -- Is Yours At Risk?

Even if you are an unpaid banking intern, consider your job in the banking industry of being under risk. There are very few businesses that will be immune in the world wide economic recession and banking jobs sure aren’t going to be one of them. According to the financial research form Celent, there will be at least 200,000 layoffs of banking jobs from September 2008 until June 2009.

What Jobs Are Affected?

Since jobs in banking covers such a vast territory in the financial landscape, let's look at what the economic experts are predicting to be the banking jobs most at risk:

• Anything to do with real estate. It's not only the homeowners who are hurting – it's also brokers, banks that hold the mortgages and anyone who works in TIC (tenant in common) investing or helping clients to invest in real estate.
• Investment bankers in general
• Loan processors (especially if the banks continue to freeze credit)
• Bank tellers. If no one has any money to use a bank, then there's no need to keep more than one teller line open on a business day.

Unless you are in higher management of are the CEO of a bank, consider your job at risk. Be sure that you have your resume updated, your references updated and put off any major purchase until after June 2009. You need to do this if you are looking for graduate banking jobs or are a branch manager.

What About The Wall Street Bailout?

Although Wall Street executives and the Bush administration pledged over $700 to banks and major financial firms to keep them from going under, they did so with hardly any strings attached and no guarantee to stop any layoffs. Two months after the huge bailout, banks in America are holding onto the money rather than letting it go to give credit to struggling American businesses. There have also been reports that bank executives have pocketed the some of the money and do not plan on any major reconstruction whatsoever – except for laying of many lower-rung banking jobs.

And not all big American banks and investment firms benefited from the bailout. Although business like AIG and Bank of America received blank checks, investment firm Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bankrupt with debts of over $613 billion. Clearly, even if you know your company got some Congressional cash, it doesn’t mean your job is secure.

If you are a banking intern, get a paying job to cover the bills and ride the tide of the economic tsunami until things settle down again. Although you may be constantly reassured that good interns get good jobs at the company you've interned for, don’t believe it. They're just trying to get as much unpaid work out of you as they can. They have no intention of paying you.

Jobs that are expected to ride out the economic recession include service jobs, jobs in the health care industry and freelancing.