Bank, the fixed job? From point of arrival to stepping stone
Unlike their parents, young people do not fear precariousness and are attracted by personal growth and flexibility
Once upon a time, a job in a bank represented the pinnacle of aspirations for generations of young people: stability, social prestige, a guaranteed annuity until retirement. Today, for millennials and Gen Z, that permanent contract is no longer a point of arrival, but rather an entry ticket into the competitive arena of the labour market. A sort of springboard from which to take flight towards more dynamic, innovative and remunerative careers to be developed elsewhere.
Recent graduates enter banking to acquire specialised and transversal skills that help ensure safety, regulatory compliance, innovation and sustainability in banking. But then they do not stop, attracted by new challenges in more precarious areas such as fintech, private equity and extraordinary finance advisors.
A cultural and professional upheaval that does not only affect the financial sector. Not only banks, but all companies risk becoming mere gyms for talent in transit. For the younger generation, the open-ended contract is no longer the holy grail. Even in the manufacturing industry, automotive or energy giants are seeing young engineers use the permanent job as a ramp for automotive tech and green start-ups, where innovation and the potential leap in pay prevail over economic and job stability. Same script in the strategy consulting giants, where juniors enter and then quickly relocate. A turnover that by now does not even spare public administration employees.
Result? A so-called 'permanent gig economy' even for the most skilled professionals, where the value lies in experience, not in contractual ties; where the model based on temporary jobs ceases to be marginal or occasional and becomes a stable, continuous and structural working condition for a large part of the workforce. Unlike their parents, young people do not fear precariousness and are attracted by personal growth and flexibility. There is a paradigm shift.
Banks like all companies must therefore find the key to retaining young talent. When they seek out and train figures such as Data Scientists (develop predictive models and artificial intelligence solutions), Payments Experts (oversee the compliance of payment services with regulations), Security Experts (manage technology security and cyber resilience), Esg and Privacy Experts (safeguard the protection of personal data), they must take into account that they are transferring skills to the worker that are expendable elsewhere.
