Hiring in banking sector rose marginally in 2010

The total number of employees of scheduled commercial banks in the country witnessed only a marginal rise of 0.76% in 2010, mainly on account of falling headcount in foreign banks and in the country's largest lender State Bank of India.

The number of bank employees in the country at the end of the last year was 9,44,620, a marginal rise from the figure of 9,37,445 in 2009, according to the 'Statistical Tables Relating to Banks of India' released by the Reserve Bank.

Among the total bank employees in 2010, there were 4.70 lakh officers, 3.19 lakh clerks and 1.55 lakh sub-staff.

While the number of employees in the private sector and public sector lenders went up during the year on an annual basis, the reverse was the case in foreign banks.

Foreign banks, which are increasing focusing on mechanisation, saw a dip of 6.22% in their employee strength in India to 27,742 in 2010 from 29,582 in the previous year.

Among the major foreign banks, Standard Chartered was the only exception. It increased its payroll to 7,903 in 2010 from 7825 in the previous year.

The country's largest lender, SBI also saw a decline in its headcount to 2,05,896 employees in 2010 from 2,00,299 in 2009. This was a fall of 2.79%.

However, all six of SBI's associate banks -- State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Indore, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Travancore -- saw their payroll go up during the year under review.

Among all public sector banks, the employee strength saw a marginal increase of 0.42% to 7,34,594 in the last year from 7,31,524 in 2009.

The best jump in payroll came from the private sector lenders. Private banks reported a growth of 3.37% in their total employee numbers at 1,82,248 persons in 2010 as against 1,76,339 in 2009.

While HDFC Bank's employee strength saw a decline (from 52,687 in 2009 to 51,888 in 2010), ICICI Bank's was up to 35,256 in 2010 from 34,596 in 2009 and Axis Bank's to 21,640 in 2010 from 20,624 in the previous year.