The welsh worker deserves praise according to this article. Its good news to see the welsh financial services worker generating almost twice as much gva as the average uk worker. Given Cardiff is a bidding financial services sector, surely this is a good sign and points to a sector that has strong growth potential and a more than capable labour market?

Good news but I am worried that the report states the sector employed 51,900 staff, down from 51,900' a year earlier. What are they saying?

I wondered that too, although it's probably rounding error

I read that as saying that financial/professional services workers in the UK were twice as productive as average workers in the UK. The only specifically Welsh bit was that this sector now accounts for 7.9% of economic output (does that mean gva?)in Wales and employs 51,900 people. I could be wrong - the article is poorly written - but I don't think it's saying that Welsh workers in that sector are twice as productive as their English/Scottish/N Irish counterparts.

I'm surprised that it only accounts for 7.9% to be honest. Perhaps this is a reflection of the type of financial services jobs there are in Wales ie. mostly back office stuff. I wonder what % of economic output it accounts for in other parts of the UK.

Also 51,900 doesn't seem that many. Admiral employs 6k on it's own. Add in L&G, Lloyds, Principality, HBOS, ING, Atradius, Hugh James, Eversheds, Zurich etc etc and you are probably up to 15k - 20k straight away just in the Cardiff area without even considering the myriad firms of solicitors, accountants, insurance brokers, financial advisers etc etc you find in every town in every part of Wales.

Bank assests in this country peaked over 4 times GDP. That's far too high and dealing with it will be a generational challenge. However that complete misallocation of resources no doubt provided people with plenty of jobs in the meantime before too big to fail kicked in and the industry was bailed out by the government. Funny arch-capitalist Jantra would be so keen on such a sector.

why is holding 4 times as many assets as GDP going to be a problem? GDP is, in accounting parlance, 'operational' whereas assets are 'capital'. you cannot readily compare the two because one relates to a single year whereas the other relates to what has been accumulated over time.

also, just a little correction to what you have written. It was the pension funds who bailed our RBS, Lloyds and Northern rock. The government issued long dated gilts to fund the investment into UKFI. When the UKFI stocks are sold then the long dated gilts will be redeemed. No taxpayers money was actually used to shore up the bank's balance sheets. All the taxpayer vis a vis the government has done is underwritten the repayment of the borrowings in future years.