Recession biting finance staff

The recession is biting the finance sector, with credit managers and auditors under increasing pressure to work more hours, while payroll clerks are actively job hunting as their work decreases.

The changing patterns show up in a survey of almost 1000 finance and accounting professionals in Auckland, carried out by recruitment company Robert Half.

The results show that the proportion of payroll clerks who are job hunting has jumped 66 per cent (75 per cent this year compared with 45 per cent last year).

And every reason for seeking a new job has decreased, except the threat of redundancy. Last year it didn't even rate as a separate reason, this year it was cited by 11 per cent.

One of the reasons payroll clerks believe their jobs are under threat may be that their workloads have decreased dramatically since the beginning of 2008. Then, 27 per cent of them said they were always or very often under pressure to work longer hours, this year only 13 per cent of them report the same pressure.

And while 18 per cent of them usually worked more than 46 hours a week last year, this year only 6 per cent report the same workload.

But the boot's on the other foot for credit managers and auditors, who are less likely to be seeking a new job, but are working longer hours and under increased pressure to extend them even further.

There has been a 71 per cent increase in the proportion of credit managers working more than 45 hours a week (from 28 per cent to 48 per cent) and a 52 per cent increase in the proportion of auditors working the same hours (from 31 per cent to 47 per cent).

Despite working those increased hours, they are increasingly under pressure to work even longer, with a 75 per cent increase in the proportion of credit managers saying they are always or very often under such pressure, and a 39 per cent increase in the proportion of auditors reporting the same pressure.

Robert Half manager Megan Alexander said the results mirrored the change recruitment consultants were seeing, with cost-containment specialists, and generalists who could turn their hand to several tasks, most in demand.

But she warned employers not to over-burden their key staff, pressuring them to work such long hours they experienced burn-out.

"It is obviously important to businesses to ensure their creditors pay them, and their processes are as efficient as possible. But it's just as important that your staff have the energy and enthusiasm to continue working productively - and they can't do that if they are burnt out."

Alexander noted that more than half of all survey respondents said they sometimes came into work when they were sick, and 17 per cent of them said they always did. Mostly this was because of workload, pressure from line managers and looming deadlines.


* The 2009 Robert Half Auckland Salary Survey was completed online from 28 January until 11 February. It attracted responses from 958 finance professionals, evenly split between men and women, 64 per cent of whom had 10 or more years' experience. The results of the survey were collated and analysed by Galaxy, an independent market research company.