JPMorgan to hire ‘thousands’ for operations hub in Poland

Poland’s government expects JPMorgan Chase & Co. to open an operational center in Warsaw, swelling the ranks of banks attracted by Poland’s lower costs amid competition by European cities for jobs set to move away from London.

The U.S. bank, which is poised to hire “several thousand people,” according to Polish Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, adds to list of foreign lenders that have been relocating some mid- and back-office positions to the formerly communist European Union member.

“The world’s largest bank will have a headquarters here and will hire several thousand people in management, risk management and logistics, which is good as these are well-paid jobs,” Morawiecki told public radio Trojka on Friday. “The deal is done.”

UBS Group AG has set up a global hub in Krakow, while Goldman Sachs, which is planning to halve its London staff to 3,000 workers, will expand in Warsaw to “several hundred” people over the next three years, Handelsblatt has reported. Morawiecki said this year that Brexit could bring as many as 30,000 business service-sector jobs to Poland.

Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokeswoman at JPMorgan in London, declined to comment. A spokeswoman said in January that the bank was “always reviewing our options to improve our real estate strategy for back-office functions” and that the process had “nothing to do with” Brexit.

Business outsourcing centers opened by foreign corporates have added 198,000 jobs in Poland, including 32,000 in the 12 months to March, with many of them in the financial industry, according to the Association of Business Service Leaders in Poland. That compares with 275,000 people employed in the traditional financial sector as of the first quarter, according to the Central Statistical Office.

New positions in the banking industry in Warsaw offer salaries from $1,400 to $5,050 per month, according to ABSL. That compares with the average annual salary of about $62,000 in financial services in the U.K., according to job recruitment agency Reed.

Separately, Poland’s second-biggest lender Pekao SA announced a prominent hire from among the group of Poles who had been building their careers in London’s financial center, flagging the move as a symbol of Warsaw’s growing allure for financial professionals amid Brexit risks.

The lender took on Roksana Ciurysek-Gedir, who has headed a team at Credit Suisse’s wealth management unit, as deputy chief executive officer. Pekao’s acting CEO Michal Krupinski, himself a former investment banker in Merrill Lynch, expects more hires from London in the coming weeks.

Courtesy Bloomberg