Amid falling staff strength, PSBs may soon start hiring on a monthly basis

With the number of employees in public-sector banks steadily declining over the past 10 years, the government has asked the lenders to chalk out a plan to improve staff strength.

In a meeting of chiefs of state-run banks with top finance ministry officials last week, the ministry suggested to them preparing a plan for recruitment every month, sources aware of the development told Business Standard.

“Banks have to make a granular plan for recruitment on a monthly basis,” said a source.

“Public-sector banks do human resources recruitment mainly through the IBPS (Institute of Banking Personnel Selection). It requires their involvement also,” the person added.

From a peak of 886,490 in 2012-13, the staff strength in government banks fell to 770,800 in 2020-21.

In contrast, the employee strength of private banks doubled from 229,124 to 572,586 during the same period.

The category of clerks and subordinate staff has seen a sharp fall while the number of officers has grown, the data shows.

Public-sector banks had 398,801 clerks and 153,628 subordinate staffers in 2012-13. That has fallen to 274,249 and 110,323, respectively.

The number of officers has grown from 334,061 to 386,228 during the same period.

“Annually when doing the planning exercise, we give our indent (official order) to the IBPS and most of the recruitment is done by them only. So, this requires a little more engagement with the IBPS before we can implement it. The idea is that banks too should contribute to the national employment plan, which is a priority for the government,” said a senior banker.

In 2020-21, public-sector banks had 86,333 branches with a business of Rs 162.54 trillion.

The move to focus on recruitment comes at a time when public- sector banks are losing market share to private players.

Their loan share has fallen from 75 per cent in 2015 to 60 per cent in 2020.

At the same time, they have improved their financial position in the past few years and beefed up their capital base. Their asset quality too has improved.

One of the reasons for their declining staff strength is due to retirement. The past decade was often termed “the retirement decade”.

While a significant number of bank employees retired, there was very little fresh recruitment. They also lost trained manpower to private players owing to attractive compensation and better career opportunities. A lot of new private banks, including small finance banks and payment banks, started operations in the previous decade.

According to bankers, now that banks’ performance is improving and business growth is coming back, lenders will need human resources to support the growth.