The Bureau of Labor Statistics, or BLS, predicts the following:
Finance employment (such as financial banking jobs, and banking jobs, for example) requires that you have experience in finance and accounting, a master's degree, and strong computer skills. If you are skilled at strategizing and implementing long-term financial plans, your chances of career success are quite good. It should be emphasized that strong computer skills, by the way, are going to be as important now and in the future as financial skills, so if you don't have the necessary skills, brush up on them before you begin to look for a job.
There is some unfortunate news at least at present in the sector, which is that corporate downsizing, mergers and acquisitions are going to continue to be detrimental to those in the financial management sector, with many more looking for these types of jobs than there are jobs themselves. However, with the economy on an upswing, economic growth and the continuing need for financial experts are going to mean that the sector itself (excluding financial management for the near future) is going to look very good indeed through at least 2014.
In this particular industry, the next eight years or so looks strong in the areas of commodities and securities, which will need financial managers to manage investments and financial transactions that are only going to get more complex. Specifically, financial managers specializing in mergers and acquisitions, global financial transaction assessment, raising capital, and managing investments and assets are going to be in great demand. Risk management, too, is going to be particularly on the upswing, so risk managers, needed to assess risks for investment insurance purposes, are going to be in high demand.
The actual manpower needed to produce financial reports has decreased because technology has streamlined this process, which means that with finance employment, banking jobs, and financial banking jobs, corporate financial managers' roles have changed. Instead of this type of hands on work, financial managers will move to being forecasters of sorts, forecasting profits, costs and earnings and looking for ways to increase profitability. Again, computer skills are going to need to be strong if you're looking for this type of work, and anyone qualified for this type of job will need to be very familiar with the software and computer skills needed to manage these types of tasks.
Other financial banking jobs are also going to trend upward, because securities and commodities are going to be a sector of growth. Baby boomers especially are focused on saving, and the government has stepped up to the plate to encourage this by providing favorable tax incentives to do so. Financial planners are going to be in demand, specific to baby boomers' desire to self manage their own retirement plans.
A global economy has also made finance employment in high demand, since consumers are increasingly looking to investing in global stocks and bonds, options and futures, and so on. Brokers especially are going to have good job prospects. However, self driven Internet stock trading and continued spotty stock performance limits employment opportunities for beginning sales agents, who often can't establish a good clientele pool even when times are good.
Financial banking jobs such as those performed by finance agents, however, should be in relatively high demand in the coming years, because banks will likely compete directly with investment firms through their product lines, by expanding product lines to provide many of the same products and services as investment firms now do.
Therefore, although certain financial management jobs will be in scarce supply through the year 2014, many other job prospects in the financial sector look very good to excellent through that same time period.
