Banks are planning to hire

Banking institutions plan to recruit a considerable number of staff members this year as large domestic demand helps the economy recover and financial holding companies engage in fierce competition, market watchers said yesterday.

"There are now over 9,800 job opportunities in the banking industry posted on our Web site, a 64-percent increase from the same period last year, showing that banks are preparing for large-scale expansion this year," Monica Chiu (邱文仁), marketing manager at 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行), said yesterday.

The banks' demands focus on finance and investment experts -- listings that account for 60 percent of advertised positions, followed by salespeople, positions that make up 35.5 percent of the jobs, Chiu said.

The high demand for labor in comparison with the number of job applicants means that it is not difficult for job hunters to get jobs -- but Chiu said that few dreams would come true.

"We have found that over half of our applicants are applying for routine positions such as general accounting, administration, bookkeeping, data input and other tasks -- which hardly cater to the banks' requirements," Chiu said.

Sarita Hao (郝名媛), a public relations official at Taishin Financial Holding Co (台新金控), said the company plans to hire 1,600 people this year.

As the consumer banking sector is poised to become a big money-maker, Hao said banks are now snapping up people with related backgrounds. Those whose majors are not finance-related are also welcome to apply to the company, as there will be a training program offered, Hao said.

Chinatrust Commercial Bank (中國信託) plans to recruit 300 investment experts this year and further extend its recruitment on campuses.

"Providing customer-oriented products and services is the key to success in the banking industry now," said Justin Chang (張志孝), an official in the public relations department at Chinatrust.

To expand market share in consumer banking, Chinatrust is gradually shrinking the workforce in its regular banking section, which handles transactions such as deposits and transfers that can be processed by machines, Chang said.