Hiring Trend │ Accounting and Finance 2016

Hiring levels for accounting and finance professionals remained relatively stable across financial services and commerce & industry in 2015.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

There was an ongoing shortage of bilingual, qualified accountants and experienced finance professionals, with highest demand for junior candidates at associate level. Hiring of non-Japanese-speaking accountants was primarily for roles requiring technical or product-specific knowledge and skills, for example product control and valuations. In the insurance industry, hiring managers experienced a severe shortage of qualified actuarial candidates – those with JCPA/Zeirishi qualifications were particularly sought after. With an emerging scarcity of contractors, as more finance professionals take on permanent roles, some companies may appoint more junior staff with simplified job descriptions in 2016. Despite these talent shortages, we expect that salaries will remain stable. Overall we saw a continued need for qualified accountants to take up contract positions in 2015, although fewer positions came to market compared to 2014. In terms of sector demand, we saw particularly high numbers of new finance and audit vacancies in the consulting and real-estate sectors.

COMMERCE

Heightened competition meant companies were prepared to increase salaries for junior bilingual financial analysts significantly in 2015. Professionals with 25 and more years’ experience were also sought to help reengineer business processes, and increasing numbers of auditors with a ‘Big 4’ background were considered for finance roles. A growing trend we expect to develop further in 2016 saw more companies keen to develop a female-friendly culture to attract more women into management roles. As more Japanese companies plan to expand overseas, we also saw heightened demand for corporate tax experts and M&A specialists. In a parallel trend within financial services, there was a clear move towards more permanent hires, leading to a shortage of candidates for contract roles. As a result we saw a 5% increase in contract rates, which we expect to continue in 2016. In Osaka, there was ongoing demand for cost accountants and bilingual finance professionals with manufacturing experience to fill permanent roles. As demand for accounting skills grew, hiring managers were increasingly prepared to be flexible about candidates’ age and background in order to secure talent. We recommend that other companies take this approach in 2016.

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