63% of respondents said they were not planning to recruit new staff or expand their business this year.
Andrew Montlake, communications director at Coreco, said that his firm is looking to expand, but have struggled to find qualified staff to take on new roles at the company.
“We have picked up three or four key introducer accounts and need to staff them. The problem we’ve found is finding suitable people to recruit. We’ve found it hard to get the right quality of people.”
Montlake said Coreco had started an apprentice scheme to find new recruits after they noticed fewer young people entering the sector, and added that brokers already working in the sector often had unrealistic wage demands.
“The credit crunch over the last five years caused fewer people to join the industry and now we’re finding it difficult to recruit people who have already gained experience in the industry and are looking for their next move.
“At the minute there’s no new blood coming into the industry and it is getting hard to entice people in. We’ve also found a lot of brokers have been asking too much. The days of earning a very large basic salary have gone.”
Montlake went on to say that with uncertainty in the market, people were more inclined to stay in their current position.
“Once there is uncertainly, you don’t want to join a new company and be the last in and first out. People don’t want to take that risk.”
