The Australian financial services industry is losing the war for talent and may not be able to maintain its growth if it is not able to turn the situation around. Its biggest failing has been its inability to attract women with tertiary qualifications to the industry.These are among the findings of a Roy Morgan Research survey of employment trends in the industry, commissioned by the Financial Services Institute of Australasia and published yesterday.Finsia's view is that "if Australia is to be considered a leading financial services centre in the Asia-Pacific region a co-ordinated approach from government and industry is required to lift the level of skilled employment in the financial services industry by at least 40 per cent to meet escalating competition from established centres such as Hong Kong and Singapore and emerging centres such as Dubai and Shanghai."Roy Morgan found that the percentage of employed Australians in the financial services industry grew from nine per cent in 1997 to 10 per cent today.Finsia chief executive Martin Fahy said that figure underlined the fact that the Australian economy was making a slow transition to high value-added service industries such as financial services. The good news is that the industry attracts a high share of university graduates. Forty three per cent of people employed in the industry are graduates, compared to 22 per cent of working Australians holding degrees. Only community services and public administration have higher education levels, with 49 and 45 per cent respectively holding degrees. But the bad news is that the gender balance is heavily skewed to males. The proportion of women working in the finance industry has fallen from 48 to 45 per cent over the past 10 years.The report says: "Notably, the proportion of women working in the finance industry declines much more sharply after age 45 as compared to the overall workforce, suggesting a structural impediment within the industry to re-employing women who once worked in the industry."Women in financial services are more likely than men to be employed part time and to work in clerical as opposed to management positions. Sixty-five per cent of women in the industry are in clerical jobs compared with 32 per cent of men.Fahy said: "The success of this industry requires us to have a comparative advantage in the competition for talent. At the moment we are not getting our share of female graduates."He said Finsia was yet to do the qualitative research that would explain these trends. The organisation will be doing some follow-up focus group research later this year.