Banks hiring more officers, fewer clerks and sub-staff

India’s banking sector continues to be labour intensive but digital technologies are changing the composition of the workforce, more so in nationalised banks.

Analysis of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data on employees of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) shows that while headcount has been on a steady rise on an overall basis, the growth has come from hiring staff in the ‘officer’ cadre while the number of juniors (comprising clerks, associates and sub-staff) has declined since at least FY17.

In FY17, the total employee count at India’s SCBs was 13 lakh with 62 per cent of them officers (around 8 lakh) and the rest comprising junior staff (clerks and sub-staff). However, the proportion of officers in total staff has been gradually rising year-on-year. Cut to FY23, 74 per cent of the employees are categorised as officers, with the proportion of clerks down to 26 per cent.

The RBI, in its recent Currency and Finance report, highlights the changing mix of banking staff in the past decade. In FY11, officers and support staff were at a 50:50 ratio; over the years, this slowly changed and is 74 per cent -26 per cent in FY23.

Analysts and bankers note that the use of technology tools for routine tasks like KYC and documentation purposes is impacting workforce composition, with a reduction in junior and middle-tier job roles and the need for more analytical and supervisory senior staff.

Balasundaram Athreya, President, Manipal Academy of BFSI, said that even though overall hiring at private sector banks was robust, the evolution of core banking systems and front-end fintech plays had led to relatively slower hiring for junior roles.