Competition for Compliance Officers Intensifies Amid Regulatory Pressures

“It’s all hands on deck for corporations to attract the talent,” said Paul C. McDonald, a senior executive director at human resources consulting firm Robert Half International Inc. “They are looking to pay the most they can, and with benefits and in perks the best they can.”

The annual average unemployment rate for compliance officers nationwide dropped to 2.4% in 2021 from 3.5% in 2020, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ current population survey. That compares with an overall national average unemployment rate of 5.3% for 2021, according to BLS. The overall rate was 3.9% in December, according to the jobs report released on Jan. 7.

Meanwhile, the annual salary guides for compliance staff offered by Robert Half showed increases for all sectors and levels from 2021 to 2022. The salary data for a compliance chief in the top 75th percentile—meaning the candidate has above average experience and has skills that are in high demand—is $209,000 for 2022, a 1.5% increase from the previous year. For an entry-level compliance analyst who will need to acquire relevant skills, the guides suggested a salary of $66,000, 0.4% higher than in 2021. While Robert Half presented its salary ranges differently in previous years, the salary guides for chief compliance officers in the 75th percentile increased steadily each year between 2018 and 2020.

Demand for compliance personnel has been growing for some time, as sectors such as financial services beefed up their compliance departments following the financial crisis of 2008 and the enactment of new regulatory regimes like the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.

“We saw compliance individuals in high demand prior to the pandemic. It’s not a new phenomenon,” Robert Half’s Mr. McDonald said. “[Job seekers] have been in the driver’s seat for some time.”

But today’s tight labor market and emerging regulatory concerns have only boosted competition for talent.

Cryptocurrency is one area that has heated up for compliance jobs, as the asset class’s growing popularity has led to more scrutiny from regulators.

Job seekers in the compliance field are looking for growth opportunities at a potential employer, and want to believe in the company’s products and its culture of compliance, said Will Brown, executive search lead for financial services at Hamlyn Williams Inc., a global recruiter that focuses on regulated industries. He added that job seekers in the field are less likely to compromise on their demands because hiring prospects are so plentiful these days.

Competition is particularly strong for chief compliance officers with experience running compliance programs at big banks and those with crypto expertise, as many companies are looking for in-house professionals with experience managing stricter regulatory expectations to help them scale up operations and enter new markets, according to Mr. Brown. Other skill sets in demand include experience with anti-money-laundering investigations and know-your-customer onboarding processes.

Facing the tight labor market, crypto exchange Bittrex Inc. has lost some talented staff to other exchanges, traditional financial institutions getting into crypto and government regulatory agencies that are recruiting staff with experience in crypto, according to Michael Carter, Bittrex’s chief compliance officer. Mr. Carter said the company has tripled the size of its compliance program since he started in May 2020.

Bittrex, which has to remain compliant with federal mandates as well as with licensing requirements in the 46 states in which it operates, has tried to compete by providing its compliance staff with a strong compensation package, Mr. Carter said. It has hired some junior people who are starting their compliance career as well as people from consulting firms with which Mr. Carter previously worked. He said the company gives priority to hiring compliance professionals who have a strong understanding of financial crimes prevention and reporting but not necessarily experience with blockchain, then trains them to better understand risk and compliance as it relates to crypto.

Broker-dealer Oppenheimer & Co.’s compliance team saw turnover last year for the first time since the pandemic began, but was able to replace the departing staff, according to Douglas Siegel, the firm’s chief compliance officer. The firm’s compliance head count has remained steady, he said, adding that some of the departing staff left for crypto firms.

He said many compliance candidates’ first questions were about work flexibility—including whether they can work from home—and about vaccine requirements. The firm, which requires its employees and visitors in the office to be fully vaccinated, in October brought its workers back to the office using a hybrid model in which employees work from home some days and come into the offices on others. But with the emergence of the Omicron Covid-19 variant, the firm has made it voluntary for employees to come into the office.

“That being said, we are also very flexible,” he said. “We also understand this is probably changing the way people look at work now.” He added that attrition is slowing down.

Recruiters are expecting the fierce competition for talent will continue through the rest of 2022, as businesses are still unsure what sort of regulations, particularly in the crypto space, will be rolled out this year.

The hiring market for compliance professionals is “incredibly active at the moment where everyone wants to be a part of it, and everyone wants to move and they can get a really good career progression,” Mr. Brown of Hamlyn Williams said. “But it will probably be in the next year or so that it will level out.”

Write to Mengqi Sun at [email protected]