SBI reduces employee strength; more people set to retire

India's largest bank State Bank of India (SBI) has reduced its total employee strength by 10,584 from April to September 2017.

According to Moneycontrol.com, the employee strength has come down in the last six months after the merger of SBI with associate banks including State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Travancore, and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.

The banking industry today is undergoing a major transition with productivity being aided by the likes of robots, chatbots, artificial intelligence, etc.

Moreover, SBI further expects retirements and redeployment of staff to improve productivity.

The full year retirements in FY18 are expected to be at 15,460. Therefore, the bank expects the employee count to further decline by approximately 5,000 people.

The biggest private sector lender, ICICI Bank, had also reduced its headcount by 1,082 people in the three months period from July to September.