People who have lost their positions in the banking and insurance industry are finding it tough to land a new job, the Financieele Dagblad said on Thursday, quoting figures from the state jobs centre UWV.

Only 27% of the people who lost their financial services sector jobs in 2016 were back in work after a year, compared to the average industry-wide figure of 63%. In 2014, 38% of former bankers had found jobs within 12 months.

The financial services sector employed 288,000 people in 2005.  The number is projected to fall to 222,000 by 2020.

Digitalisation and automation made inroads on banking sector jobs, the FD said. Moreover, only 10% of people aged 50 and older found new jobs.

Both ING and ABN Amro told the paper they ran schemes to retrain redundant workers for jobs elsewhere in the bank.

‘If any task it easy to digitize, then it’s only a question of time before that happens,’ said De Unie union spokesman Emanuel Geurts.