SBI reduces Employee Strength by 10,500 after Merger

In the 6 months period after it's merger with five associate banks and Bharatiya Mahila Bank (from April to September 2017), India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has reduced it's employee strength by 10,584. This is further expected to go down by 4,876 people by the end of the year closing March 2018, as targeted by the bank.

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 staff strength has come down to 2,69,219 staff as on September 2017 compared to 2,79,803 as on March 2017.

SBI, which is among the top 50 banks globally, further expects retirements and redeployment of staff to improve productivity. Full year retirements in FY18 are expected to be at 15,460. Hence, the government bank expects the employee count to further decline by 4,876 staff, as it had targeted in the first quarter of this fiscal year.

Although, the bank has also finalised hiring of 2,200 probationary officers in the second half of this fiscal year.

Prashant Kumar, Deputy Managing Director (Corporate Development Officer) of SBI said, “We have got employees from our associate banks and hence, we had already said there would be very less recruitments this year 2017-18. However, we have recruited 2,200 probationary officers who would be joining us from January 2018. That is the only recruitment planned so far.”

SBI’s former chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya without giving a number, had stated, “I don’t think we will be doing too many recruitments. On the clerical side, there will not be any recruitments and on the officers’ side, there will be some towards the end of the year.”

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.

Source : Moneycontrol.com