Launching Australia's Skilled Workforce for Financial Services, Mr Les Hosking, CEO of Axiss, said: "Australia's skilled workforce has proved to be the primary lure for the more than 100 global financial services firms that have either established new operations or expanded existing ones within Australia in the last three-and-a-half years. The attractiveness of our workforce distinguishes Australia from other centres in the Asia-Pacific and gives us a powerful advantage in the provision of financial services for the region.
"Global firms such as JPMorgan, Citigroup and ABN AMRO have selected Australia as a base for regional activities, citing Australia's skilled workforce as a driving factor behind their decisions", said Mr Hosking.
Australia's Skilled Workforce for Financial Services shows that Australia has a global reputation for high quality management ability, with locals holding senior international positions at firms such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank. It also highlights that Australia's workforce is the most linguistically diverse in the Asia-Pacific, with more than 850,000 people fluent in a major Asian language and 1.3 million fluent in a major European tongue (apart from English). The costs for that workforce are among the lowest in the developed region, with salaries for finance-related roles in Australia up to 100% cheaper than in Singapore and 240% less costly than in Hong Kong.
Australia's Skilled Workforce for Financial Services also reveals that:
- 350,000 people, or about 3.5% of Australia's total workforce, are employed in the finance and insurance sector with Sydney alone having 25% more people working in the sector than either Singapore or Hong Kong.
- Australia's outstanding quality of life negates the need to pay the expensive location premiums for personnel common in other regional centres such as Singapore and Hong Kong, where average location premiums as a percentage of salary can amount to 10% and 15% respectively.
- Macquarie University has the world's largest postgraduate degree program in finance with more than 900 enrolled students and the Melbourne Business School has been rated the best business school in the Asia-Pacific*.
