Technology has enhanced most American careers in finance, according to a new paper.
According to a new report entitled “The Future of Trading: the People” produced by Refinitiv in conjunction with Greenwich Associates, only “4% of Gen Xers and 7% of millennials told us that technology innovation has limited their career opportunities.”
Meanwhile the report found that 80%, “of capital markets professionals believe technology has provided them new career opportunities.”
The report continued, “The vast majority of financial professionals feel that technology innovation has, in fact, enhanced their career thus far. Roughly 4 out of 5 finance professionals feel that technology innovation has presented them with new opportunities, and about half say that it has accelerated their career growth. While the positive sentiment is slightly stronger among the digital-native millennial crowd, Gen Xers and baby boomers are similarly excited about the impact of the market’s digitization on their job progression.”
The report singled out Gen Xers.
Gen Xers were born from 1965-1979, according to the report’s parameters.
Gen X is sandwiched by millennials and baby boomers.
“The career experience of Gen Xers, those born in the late 1960s and 1970s, is particularly interesting in this context. Sixty percent of Generation X—most of whom are in the prime years of their career—feel technology reshaped their career in unexpected ways. This compares to only 41% of baby boomers and 48% of millennials.
“The majority of Gen X came to Wall Street and New York City during the first dot-com boom—a time when technology was just starting to demonstrate its potential to upend the status quo. Fast forward to today and it has become commonplace for traders and bankers to transition off the trading desk into fintech firms—sometimes as employees but often as founders. Most of this group worked very hard to get their coveted spot in the front office and never expected they would find themselves building or selling technology later in their career, in jobs that in many cases didn’t even exist two decades ago.”
Meanwhile, only 15%, “of capital markets professionals believe their job is at risk of being replaced by technology,” the report found.
The report continued, “Roughly 1 million finance jobs have been added in the past decade, following the lows of the financial crisis, growing nearly 12%. As we have demonstrated above, the nature of these jobs and skills required have changed. While those that know the markets and can work with clients remain highly valuable, those with technical expertise, particularly when it comes to data science, are increasingly just as important to long-term success.
“This, in part, explains why only 15% of respondents are worried that technology will replace them. While it proved a tough time for many, the financial crisis shook the jobs tree, leaving market participants with only their most highly valuable employees when all was said and done.”
The results from this report run counter the conclusions of a 2019 House Financial Services Committee hearing on Artificial Intelligence.
In that hearing, Bill Foster, a Democrat from the State of Illinois, referred to a Wells Fargo report which concluded that robots would take approximately 200,000 banking jobs in the next decade.
“These numbers seem astounding and mind-boggling. However, the robot overhaul has been in motion for some time,” a Forbes story on the Wells Fargo report stated, “While others use the term ‘robots,’ it’s fair to say that this also refers to artificial intelligence, advanced technology and sophisticated software.”
According to Refinitiv’s website, it states of the company, “Serving more than 40,000 institutions in approximately 190 countries, Refinitiv provides information, insights and technology that drive innovation and performance in global financial markets. Our heritage of integrity enables our customers to make critical decisions with confidence while our best-in-class data and cutting-edge technologies enable greater opportunity.”
Greenwich Associates is, “Part of CRISIL Limited (an S&P Global Company) is the leading global provider of data, analytics, and insights to the financial services industry. We specialize in providing unique high value data and actionable recommendations to help our clients improve their business results.”
