Federal Bank to recruit 3,000 people by 2011

At a time when the idea of cost-cutting has gripped banks all over the world, the country’s private lender Federal Bank today said it expects to recruit nearly 3,000 people by 2011.

“We expect to recruit about 1,000 people every year for two to three years. This year we have recruited 700 people and 100 more will be joining soon,” Federal Bank Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director M Venugopal told reporters here.

The bank is looking at employing people from the finance or marketing streams, he said adding that the recruitments will be done mostly through campus placements. Federal Bank, fourth among private banks, is on an expansion mode. The bank needs manpower for the expansion, Venugopal said.

Many global banks such as Citigroup, J P Morgan, HSBC and others, which have a presence in India, recently announced job cuts in the wake of the financial crisis.

Federal Bank’s recruitment drive comes at a time when the banks are mulling cost-cutting measures by reducing their headcount. Venugopal said, “We still have enough scope to grow...It could be that they have overgrown in size, but we are expanding so there is enough scope for us to grow in size.”

At present, the bank has about 7,200 staff and it expects that the headcount would grow to 10,000 by 2011, he said adding that the bank expects to have nearly 1,000 branches by 2011.

However, Venugopal admitted that the bank’s expansion plan was affected to an extent this year due to the financial crisis. But even then, the business growth of the Kerala-based bank is pegged at about 25 per cent this year.