Recruitment in the mortgage industry is frequently focused on mortgage brokers. Where will the new brokers come from? What is the best way to train them? And will the average age of a broker ever drop below 52?
Mortgage Solutions has a campaign to encourage the recruitment of brokers to the industry, which has been joined by several other initiatives to promote and enhance the process. However, there is now a new recruitment challenge for the market.
Unfortunately, there have been several stories of redundancies across the board this week. The first and perhaps most memorable was Merrill Lynch. After announcing huge losses two weeks ago, and then the departure of its chief executive, the investment giant confirmed redundancies at its UK subsidiary Mortgages Plc of up 20% of its staff. Wave, another Merrill subsidiary has also been hit. Later on in the week, Kensington also confirmed redundancies, and a new operational structure to ease its way through the liquidity crisis and introduce a regime of a low cost base, coupled with an increase in automated procedures.
Where does this leave the hundreds – for surely the number must be in the hundreds – of business development managers, operational staff, back office teams and administrative personnel? Although there will immediately be jobs for some elsewhere, what will happen to those who, due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, find themselves out of a job?
The answer is potentially find another one. The mortgage industry is nothing if not resourceful. And out of threat always comes opportunity. Those firms planning for the future will seek out the brightest and the best to augment their own propositions – and this includes broker firms too. The great thing about this industry is its ability to get back on its feet. We have survived the recessions of 1980-82 and 1991-92, as well as the mortgage endowment crisis of the late 1980s. The industry will come back from this situation leaner, and more creative, than before.
Unfortunately, the current problems have now spread as far as domestic energy assessors. This week, I have personally received phone calls from assessors, asking me whether the full roll-out of home information packs (HIPs) will actually happen.
Regrettably, I was unable to give them an answer, just point them towards the facts. It appears that reassurances from the Department of Communities and Local Government and other associations are not enough.
There have been suggestions that advertisements, mainly in the national press have been misleading, suggesting that assessors can earn in excess of £50,000 per year. But if the business is not there, it will not happen. Again, this industry is very good at supporting itself and the people within it. But energy assessors are having to continue to play a waiting game when they could be putting their skills back into the industry in other ways. n
