What kind of job are you looking for?

“I need to find a job as soon as possible”

Try searching for temping or contract jobs

“Where will I find the time to job hunt”

Why not set up an email job alert? This way you will be notified when your ideal job is added to CanaryWharfJobs.com

“My CV needs updating”

Take a look at our Career Tools page, here we provide CV assistance.

Still Stuck?

Browse these popular sectors.

>Banking
>Finance
>IT
>Accountancy
>Sales and Marketing
>Office and Admin

Not really your thing? View all Sectors>>>

CanaryWharfJobs Joins Facebook!

Canary Wharf and London’s most dedicated jobs board (CanaryWharfJobs.com) is now on Facebook.
The Facebook page is the next step in CanaryWharfJobs.com’s strategy to build its own network.

Job seekers can use the page to keep up to date with the latest industry news, view articles from our monthly newsletters, gain careers advice and most importantly feed back to the team at CanaryWharfJobs.

Natalie Adams, CanaryWharfJobs comments “we anticipate that job seekers will use this Facebook page to interact with each other, discuss their careers, share ideas and hopefully build their own community.

You can visit the CanaryWharfJobs Facebook page logging in to your account or by following this link
http://www.facebook.com/pages/CanaryWharfJobscom/9977500142


www.canarywharfjobs.com

BONUS PAYMENTS – LIMITATIONS ON AN EMPLOYER’S POWER. THE

Introduction.

Bonuses have many purposes, ranging from motivating an employee to achieve particular goals (financial or otherwise) to encouraging staff loyalty. Either way, the employee stands to gain for doing something that will benefit his or her employer. It is therefore surprising that a number of cases have come before the Courts in recent years concerning circumstances where an employer could be said to have abused a bonus scheme, seeking to take the benefit from the employee
without making a proper or any bonus payment. Employers sometimes try to hide behind a discretion whether or not to pay a bonus, stating that this discretion justifies non payment even where an employee can fairly be said to have kept their side of the bargain by hitting
targets or remaining loyal. These cases have seen the Courts lay down guidelines, establishing that just because an employer has a discretion over a bonus payment does not mean
that the exercise of that discretion is unfettered.

General Principle.

In 2004 the case of Cantor Fitzgerald International v Horkulak established that any decision to award a bonus must be rational and in good faith. If must not be arbitrary and irrational.

Practical Application.

In practice this means that a court will look at the contract in question and how the contract is operated to decide if an employer has acted rationally and in good faith. This can sometimes lead to surprising results. In Clark v Nomura, a bonus scheme was described as discretionary, not
guaranteed, and dependant on individual performance. The Court, however, decided that it was too rigid for the employer to base its decision on individual performance, as this would prevent the employer from relying on other legitimate factors. This is an employee friendly decision where the court appears to have taken the view that as the employee deserved a payment it was not going to let the employer hide behind its discretion to avoid a payment where it was
irrational in the circumstances to do so. The courts, however, are not always employee friendly.
In Midland Bank v McCann, the Court decided that it was permissible (albeit hardhearted) for an employer to refuse a bonus to an employee about to be made redundant, where the express purpose of the bonus was to attract, motivate and retain employees. It was obvious that paying the bonus to this soon to be redundant employee would not meet any of the bonus scheme’s
purposes.

Amount to Be Paid

Where the amount due is discretionary and not referable to a specific formula, the case of Taylor v Motability Finance Ltd. decided that the test of how much should be paid was not what a reasonable employer would pay, but what the particular employer in question should have paid with reference to contractual terms and, depending on the circumstances, what other similar employees had received.

Equal Treatment

Quiet apart from any rules outlawing discrimination and requiring equal pay, the Courts have decided that employees must be treated even handedly in relation to bonuses. This does not necessarily mean that employees must be treated the same (although if they are not there could be discrimination and equal pay issues), but any different treatment must not be capricious.

Dismissing to Avoid Payment and Co-operation

A recent case (Takacs v Barclays Services Jersey Limited) has suggested that an employer cannot dismiss an employee if the reason for the dismissal is to avoid its obligations to pay a bonus, and that an employer may be under a duty to co-operate with an employee in achievement of sales targets. Although the court in question has not finally decided on the points, it has said that they are good arguments.

What Can An Employee Do?

If an employee is upset with a bonus decision, they should generally follow the employer’s grievance procedure.
If an employee also feels that he/she has been discriminated against, they should also follow the Statutory Questionnaire Procedure.

Enjoy your bonus before payouts begin to dry up

Anyone leafing through UK newspapers before Christmas would have noticed the usual stories about must-have toys, travel chaos, and how the seasonal break is now stretching to three weeks off work.

Yet one familiar staple is missing. Almost nothing has been written about the eye-watering bonuses being handed out to workers in the City, as London’s financial district is known.

There is a simple reason for that. Bonuses, by recent standards, are likely to be very modest this year. The days of the mega-bonus may be gone for a long time to come.

The credit crunch isn’t a disaster for the global economy, but for one small section of it: people who work in the upper echelons of the money markets, creating, selling or trading exotic financial products.

Since they are the people who collect the big bonuses, it isn’t hard to conclude that the outlook for next year is wintry. The 2007 bonus season may still be a good one for a few bankers.

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc has said its bonus pool for staff rose 10 percent this year. The bank will pay about $5.7 billion in bonuses compared with $5.2 billion in 2006. Likewise, Goldman Sachs Group Inc staffers look set to enjoy yet another good year.

The New York-based investment bank had set aside $16.9 billion to pay salaries, benefits and bonuses in the first nine months of 2007, even more than its 2006 full-year record, according to the company’s third-quarter earnings report.

Elsewhere the picture will be more mixed. The London-based Centre for Economic and Business Research says City bonuses may drop 16 per cent next year. The UK recruitment firm Armstrong International estimates a 2007 bonus decline of as much as 20 per cent in London compared with the 2006 payouts.

And some people may just feel too embarrassed to collect anything at all, given the kind of setbacks their banks have suffered. Marcel Ospel, the chairman of UBS AG, said this month that he didn’t “expect or want” a bonus for 2007.

When you have just written off $10 billion for losses on subprime investments, it is probably understandable. Plenty of other senior bankers may be struck by similar pangs of guilt over picking up anything more than their base salary.

One year of reduced bonuses wouldn’t matter very much. Nobody ever claimed that finance was steady work. There are good and bad years, and everyone accepts that. The issue is what happens when you look forward. Is this just a dip? Or is it a turning point?

Already, the market for luxury goods indicates that a turning point has been reached. The prices of London luxury homes have stalled, according to Knight Frank LLC. It expects only modest increases next year as bonus payments dwindle. Likewise, decent wine. According to the Liv-ex.com index, prices of the best wine, which have more than doubled in the past two years, are starting to fall.

The message? The big bonuses won’t be back any time soon. There are three reasons for that.

One, innovation is about to dry up. The big money in finance has been made in devising new and exotic financial instruments.

Slicing and dicing different kinds of bonds, and repackaging them in novel ways gave banks huge profits in the past five years. The credit crunch has killed that market stone dead.


Bloomberg / Mumbai December 20, 2007

View article

Canarywharfjobs.com goes from strength to strength

CanaryWharfJobs.com has received an astonishing response from both clients and jobseekers since the site was re-launched last month. With vastly improved looks and functionality, it has certainly enhanced its reputation as canary wharf’s most successful on-line jobs board!

One of their clients, William Murday, a Senior Consultant at global executive search firm, NJF Search International commented:

“I have been using the CanarywharfjJobs.com website for the last 12 months and within that time I have made 16 placements from candidates I received through the site. But I just wanted to let you know that the quality of the applicants in the last month or so has been exceptional. It has now become the most successful jobs board I use! So thank you and keep up the good work!”

But it is not all down to the techies that canarywharfjobs.com is doing so well! A vibrant new Account Manager has also been getting rave reviews!

Natalie Adams (pictured left) joined the company a little over four months ago and it was her drive and innovative approach to all things online that resulted in the overhaul of the entire Canarywharfjobs.com site. Indeed, George Calderbank, Director of Canarywharfjobs.com said: “We are lucky to have found Natalie and we are delighted she has joined our team. She has brought a fresh approach to the company and has some truly excellent ideas. She really wants to help clients attract the right kind of candidates and has some extremely clever and novel ways of attracting candidates to our site that other job boards cannot reach!”

Canarywharfjobs.com has come a long way since it was launched back in early part of 2005. It is now firmly established as the number one jobs board for the canary wharf district and is now a real alternative to larger and much more expensive competitors! The site now boasts a database of over 100,000 candidates and last month the site attracted over 50,000 unique users and over 1million page impressions! The site also has a loyal client list that has enjoyed the site getting bigger and better over the past two years. Long may it continue!

If you would like to find out more information about Canarywharfjobs.com please speak to Natalie Adams herself on 0207 257 6214 or at Natalie@canarywharfjobs.com

www.CanaryWharfJobs.com

Bonuses, Bond Markets and More..

An article with a distinct US focus, but interesting at the same time.. I have included some of the major points below.

If you have an investment portfolio which holds only big name UK stocks...
...and you've just come back from a seven-week holiday free from TV, newspapers and mobile phones...
...you could be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss has been about.
Particularly if you don't own any shares in banks or pub owners.
Because since reaching the dizzy heights of 6,717 on 13 July, the FTSE 100 share index is down...yes, all of 5%!
No big deal, and hardly justifying all the hysteria that continues to consume so many column inches.
Yet over in the debt markets it's all been very different.
Huge losses have been incurred. US mortgage lenders have gone bust. Hedge funds have been wiped out. And the ‘toxic waste' has spread well beyond the shores of the North American mainland. Emergency funding has had to be hastily arranged to re-finance banks as far away as Germany.
Estimates of repackaged American home loans bought by banks in the States, Europe and Asia range up to an unhealthy £250bn.
Bankers around the world have now got the jitters. They are trying to work out who is, and is not, safe to lend to, poring over their own balance sheets to guesstimate how many of the loans that they thought were OK...have gone bad.
And all the while the credit-rating agencies have been well ‘behind the curve', still assigning high credit ratings to what has proved to be very dodgy debt.
There have been dire warnings from bond watchers that up to 5,000 jobs could be axed in the City and Canary Wharf as a result of the turmoil. Some forecasters see as many as a third of investment bankers involved in the creation and selling of so-called ‘asset-backed securities' facing the axe.
You've probably worked out by now that the term ‘asset-backed security' has in many cases turned out to be a complete misnomer. The assets haven't proved to be worth anything like as much as, or indeed as secure as, the builders of these financial houses of cards liked to think they would be.
At the very least, the big bonanzas of yesteryear are firmly off the agenda.
Last week we heard that financial-sector bonuses added up to a staggering £14bn in the past twelve months. It could be some time before that sort of figure is seen again.

Is this really going to hit London share prices?

Answer: yes it is. Not necessarily now, but more likely gradually, over time.
Because British companies will find it harder to borrow money at the rates they want. Private-equity managers will be unable to raise cash for 'leveraged' buyouts, i.e. taking over other businesses on borrowed money. So the takeover train that has driven up stock prices for so long will hit the buffers.
And the overall effect of the credit crunch will be to slow down economic growth, so that both company sales and profits will be hurt. City bonuses will be slashed too, meaning that less cash will be sloshing around.
But the stock market may well not suffer another period like the last seven weeks. This time it could be different.
I can see shares just drifting down as the bad news keeps on biting...


>> What do you think? Agree with David? Let us know

City Bonuses

Wondering bout your bonus potential this year? With Evaluations underway at many of the Investment Banks, the news is a little worrying for many working in London's Financial Institutions.

LONDON, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Only six weeks ago London's financial hub seemed headed for another round of hefty bonus payouts from a bumper first half of transactions. But a global financial downturn has dampened the mood.
Bankers and traders who splurge on fast cars, vacation homes and luxury yachts with the extra cash each year may be forced to scale back their spending plans as the U.S. subprime turmoil and credit squeeze have brought dealflow to a grinding halt.
About 4,200 bankers in the City of London pocketed bonuses of more than 1 million pounds ($2 million) each in the latest bonus season, according to an estimate from Britain's Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).


But payouts could tumble by as much as a quarter this time around, said Jonathan Said, a senior economist at the centre.
The forecast is a U-turn from the centre's earlier prediction that this year's City bonuses would top last year's record high pool of around 8.8 billion pounds ($17.7 billion), which itself was an increase of 18.3 percent on 2005.
Since then, a sharp rise in defaults in the U.S. subprime mortgage market -- which caters to borrowers with poor credit histories -- set off global market volatility and deeply dented revenues of some of the world's biggest banks.
"Banks are having significant increases in their costs. They can't access liquidity as cheaply as before," Said said. "The first costs that you take off are bonuses."