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Private Sector Bank Employees Count Poised to Surpass Public Sector Banks
Private Sector Banks (PVBs) in India are rapidly closing in on Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in terms of employee count, with potential overtaking expected by 2024. Despite PSBs record profit earning, the employee count decline and stagnation underlines a curious trend.
Author: Saurav Kumar
Published: October 11, 2023
The distribution of employees in Private Sector Banks (PVBs) is rapidly inching to surpass the total employee count of the Public Sector Banks (PSBs). PVBs with an employee base of 7,45,000 are only a few thousand away from that of PSBs, which reported the workforce strength of 7,56,000 as of March 2023.
Reserve Bank of India’s Handbook of Statistics on the Indian Economy 2022-23 released on September 18 reported about the distribution of employees across Public Sector banks, Private Sector banks, Foreign banks, Rural Regional banks, Commercial banks, Small Finance banks and Payments banks.
Decadal Low and High
The employee distribution, as per the RBI report, reflects a striking difference in the past decade. Employee count can be seen constantly decreasing in the PSBs, while PVBs have witnessed a continuous rise.
PSB employee distribution comprising Officers, Clerks, and Subordinates in 2012-13 was 8,86,490, whereas the count in PVBs was 2,29,124. The difference of employees count between PSBs and PVBs in 2012-13 was 6,57,366, which has come down to a meagre 11,032 in FY 2022-23.
This rapid squeeze in the difference of employee distribution can be seen in lieu of the massive decline of recruitments in the PSBs and slow transition to outsourcing of the workforce.
The Uneven Pattern
An uneven pattern can be traced in the profile of PSB employee distribution. While constant decline in the total employees working with PSBs, the number of those in officer’s grade has risen from 3,34,061 in 2012-13, to 3,97,318 in 2022-23. While the clerical staff has declined from 3,98,801 in 2012-13 to 2,57,771 in 2022-23.
The trend for clerical staff allegedly indicates the cutting short of the clerical vacancies and replacing them with the business correspondents.
Overlapping the PSBs
If the trend continues in the current financial year (FY24), the tally of employees working with private sector banks may surely surpass that of PSBs by March 2024.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows constant growth of the numbers of employees on the contrary to the PSBs that are gradually contracting their employee base.
This came despite good functioning of the PSBs when their profit touched Rs. 1,04,649 crore in 2022-23. The 12 PSBs witnessed a 57% increase in total profit compared to ₹66,539.98 crore earned in 2021-22.
The report also highlighted the interesting emergence of Small Finance Banks (SFBs) since FY 2017-18. The SBFs are seen shifting gears with their tally growing over three-fold in the past five years from 39,108 in March 2018 to 1,34,494 as of March 2023.