PSU banks including UBI, PNB plan to hire 5 lakh as global banks cut jobs in India
Date: 09-Dec-2011
State-run banks led by Union Bank of India and Punjab National Bank are picking up the slack in recruitment in financial services with plans to hire as many as 5 lakh in the next few years even as BNP Paribas, Nomura, Barclays and others cut jobs in India.
A whopping 44 lakh candidates will appear for a common recruitment test for clerks in public sector banks up to December 11 for about 50,000 jobs in the next four months, bank executives said. This is above the 10.5 lakh who took the examination for officers' posts recently.
State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have cut thousands of positions in the last decade to improve efficiency by not filling up those left vacant due to retirements and through early voluntary retirement plans. That led to improvement in business per employee, which surged to Rs 10 crore in 2011, from Rs 3.8 crore in 2005, RBI data shows.
In the last decade, nearly two lakh positions fell vacant. "In PSBs, expansion of branches and replacement of retired staff are driving significant increases in hiring," said NS Rajan, partner and global leader (people and organisation) at consultants Ernst & Young."We predict that they need to add about 5,00,000 jobs over the next few years, hence will show a robust growth in hiring trends."
OPPORTUNITY FOR PSBs
These hirings come amid a slash in high-paying jobs at multinational banks such as BNP Paribas, Nomura and Barclays which are struggling to survive the European credit crisis by selling assets and improving their capital. These banks also suffer as deals collapse and trading, a key revenue earner, turns out to be a lossmaking proposition in a volatile environment.
" It's a good market opportunity for public sector banks to hire people as talent availability will now be much more due to slower pace of employment generation by private and foreign banks," said James Agrawal, director and business head of BTI Consultants, a part of global HR firm Kelly Services.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP and UBS led nearly 300 layoffs in the glamourous investment banking, corporate banking and retail divisions of global banks. This western approach to employment has been questioned by Reserve Bank of India governor Duvvuri Subbarao on whether it is the right strategy.
"Foreign banks in emerging economies vigourously built business in good times, but are equally vigourous at retrenching during crises," Governor Duvvuri Subbarao had said. "The question is, are foreign banks going to be fair-weather friends."
Among local players, PNB and Union Bank are in the process of recruiting a cool 21,500 people in the next few quarters. Of this, Delhi-based PNB is hiring 10,500 people, more than double the number of employees retired since April this year. All state-run banks, barring SBI and its associates, has recently been given the mandate of holding the common written test to Institute of Banking Personnel Selection or IBPS for screening.
Courtsey:ET
Posted By : Pallavi Dwivedi
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