PSBs may soon

see hiring on
monthly basis
FinMin asks for plan POWER
amid falling strength SHIFT
MANOJIT SAHA
Mumbai, 27 September

W
Trend in
ith the number of employ-
ees in public-sector banks
employee
steadily declining over the strength
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 they prepare 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
Source: RBI
Banking Personnel Selection). It
requires their involvement also,” the
person added. “Annually when doing the plan-
From a peak of 886,490 in 2012- ning exercise, we give our indent
13, the staff strength in government (official order) to the IBPS and most
banks fell to 770,800 in 2020-21. of the recruitment is done by them
In contrast, the employee strength only. So, this requires a little more
of private banks doubled from 229,124 engagement with the IBPS before we
to 572,586 during the same period. can implement it. The idea is that
The category of clerks and subor- banks too should contribute to the
dinate staff has seen a sharp fall while national employment plan, which is
the number of officers has grown, the a priority for the government,” said
data shows. a senior banker. Turn to Page 6 >
PSBs...
PSBs had 398,801 clerks and
153,628 subordinate staffers in
2012-13. That has fallen to
274,249 and 110,323, respective-
ly. The number of officers has
grown from 334,061 to 386,228
during the same period.
In 2020-21, public-sector
banks had 86,333 branches
with a business of ~162.54 tril-
lion. 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. 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 pay-
ment banks, started operations
in the previous decade.