American Express is looking for software engineers, coders and developers, part of a 1,500-person hiring spree for its technology arm.
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Hiring at a time of impending recession
This goes against the overall sentiment in the corporate world which fears an economic slowdown that has prompted other U.S. financial companies to cut jobs in recent months.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc is expected to cut jobs starting as early as this month, according to a source.
Financial technology firms like Robinhood Markets Inc and mortgage lenders including loanDepot Inc have also slashed headcount this year.
A third of hires to be Indian
Amex has already added more than 3,600 technical workers this year.
It hopes to fill the remaining openings by the end of the year, Ravi Radhakrishnan, AmEx’s chief information officer, said.
Roughly 60 percent of the hires will be in the US, with about a third in India and the rest in Europe.
As of the end of last year Amex had 64,000 employees.
Hunting in-demand talent
It is now on a war footing to get technology talent.
Nearly two-thirds of human-resources professionals cited hiring qualified developers as their biggest recruitment challenge of the year.
Spending has shot up this year as customers return to traveling and dining out following years of pandemic-related lockdowns.
Optimistic revenue expectations
Moderate inflation tends to benefit credit card companies, which charge a transaction fee.
It expects revenue for the year to climb as much as 25%, a bigger leap over than previous forecasts.
Hence AmEx wants to beef up its investments in technology and talent.
Chief Financial Officer Jeff Campbell said in July that the company expects full-year operating expenses to be around $13 billion.
This will go toward investing in its “talented colleague base, technology and other key underpinnings of our growth given our tremendously high levels of revenue growth.”
Flexibility in terms of location of work
In particular, the company is seeking data scientists, engineers and analysts for handling everything from fraud management to lifestyle services to the company’s venture-capital arm.
It has been one of the few banks to embrace remote work even after the pandemic, with 40 percent of staffers being fully virtual.
The majority of the company’s staffers have chosen to come into the office two days a week and work remotely the rest of the week.
Luring in talent
“There’s a lot of talent that wants to understand how we approach flexibility,” Radhakrishnan said.
It’s not just the flexibility but also the option to be virtual, in-person or hybrid that is offered.
“It’s combining it with purpose. We do that. We ask people to work with their leaders to determine the purpose for coming in”, Radhakrishnan said.
Unemployment claims down
On a similar note, US unemployment claims decreased by 5,000 to 213,000 in the week ended 10 September.
The four-week moving average dropped to 224,000 — the lowest since June, Labor Department data showed last Thursday.
Federal Reserve’s actions and effects
These claims have been decreasing in numbers as employers are still trying to fill millions of open positions and retain the workers they already have.
However, the trend may reverse as the Federal Reserve pursues an aggressive path of interest-rate hikes to reign in demand across the economy, including for labor.
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