SYDNEY - AUSTRALIA has become a refuge for a new endangered species: the high-flying banker.

Bankers facing layoffs in Europe and the United States are looking increasingly at Australia's drum-tight market, led by expatriate Australians lured home by a buoyant local economy.

About 34,000 Australian nationals have returned from Britain in the past 12 months, the highest number ever registered, according to international placement firm Link Recruitment.

'I came back for three reasons: I was given a great career opportunity to run a broader business in Australia, I turned 40 and I am about to have my first baby,' said UBS Australia's head of fixed income, Mr Grant Lovett.

Australian-born Mr Lovett returned home after a 12-year stint in New York and London where he worked in credit markets at Bankers Trust, Barclays Capital and now UBS.

Australia's banking sector has been relatively unscathed by the sub-prime mortgage meltdown and firms are still struggling to fill positions due to a very tight labour market.

In contrast to the US and Britain, which have seen thousands of job cuts, there have not been major layoffs in Australia and its financial institutions are robust.

Fuelled by a commodities boom, the country has been the target for US$59.6 billion (S$81 billion) worth of mergers this year, said Thomson Reuters.

Local debt markets have grown significantly since 2000, fuelled by the nation's mandatory retirement savings programme, while pension funds have doubled in size.

A growing contingent of Australian expatriates is hence ready to return despite smaller salaries and bonuses.

'It's across all industry sectors, but the largest is in banking and financial firms,' said Mr Jason Cartwright, general manager of global services at Link Recruitment in Melbourne.

In the first quarter of this year, there was a 14 per cent decline in the number of Australians heading out of the country to gain international experience, according to a survey conducted by Link Recruitment.

Lifestyle is also a major driver for most expat returns.

Credit trader Ben Metcalfe has come back to ABN Amro in Sydney after a two-year stint in London, and is enjoying a daily motorbike ride to work from Manly, a Sydney beach suburb.

'My commute was cut down to 15 minutes from nearly two hours in London,' he said.

There has also been growing interest from foreigners in heading Down Under.

A buoyant economy - underpinned by a strong Australian dollar, 17 years of uninterrupted growth and a near 33-year low unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent - is a big attraction.

Mr Cartwright said just more than half of job applications he received came from foreigners outside Australia, up from around 35 per cent just a year ago. Most of the arrivals are from India, New Zealand, Britain, the Philippines and South Africa.

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jun 2, 2008