Growth adds fuel to banks' hiring plans

After the information technology (IT) sector, it is the turnof India'sbanking sector to hire in big numbers as the sector faces a huge manpowershortage at all levels with most banks drawing up big plans for expansion.

"After the IT sector, it is the banking sector that will seehuge hiring numbers, both from the private banks and the public sector banks,"V. Suresh, executive vice president and national head (sales), Naukri. com,said.

"In fact, vacancies are at all levels-freshers as well asmid- and senior-management levels. As most of the banks are expandingaggressively and a large number of staff of PSBs (public sector banks) isretiring, the sector requires a large number of staff to support their growth,"Suresh added.

According to an estimate by the Indian Banks' Association (IBA),public sector banks alone require at least four lakh new employees in the nexttwo years.

For example, while Bank of Baroda is looking to recruit5,000 employees during the current fiscal, India'slargest lender State Bank of India ( SBI), which hiredover 20,000 people last year, is planning to hire 10,000 more this year andUnion Bank of India (UBI) plans to hire 4,000 people.

According to MV Nair, chairman, Institute of BankingPersonnel Selection ( IBPS) and chairman, UBI, " At present, public sector bankemployee number is almost one million but a large chunk of them will retire inthe next two years." Last year, IBPS facilitated the recruitment of 48,000employees in PSBs.

"This year, going by the requirement, we expect the numberto be much higher," said M. Balachandran, director, IBPS, adding that unlike inthe past when most recruits stayed on in the same job till retirement, a largenumber of the new recruits move on to other organisations over the years.

To fill up this huge demand-supply gap, PSBs are not onlygoing to campuses for recruitment but have also relaxed their strict hiringcriteria.

For example, earlier the minimum eligibility forprobationary officers of SBI used to be at least 65 per cent marks atgraduation level. Now, it has relaxed it to just a normal graduation degree.

Other banks are also relaxing their selection criteria asthey are unable to get the requisite number of suitable candidates for jobsacross levels.

As the economy continues to expand, most private sectorbanks are looking to expand their business. This has resulted in a spurt inhiring activity in this segment, too.

According to the Naukri. Com Job Index for May, the bankingsector was the top recruiter.

Interestingly, as in the IT sector, the banking sector too,is witnessing high attrition due to the limited number of suitable candidatesavailable to fill in the expanding number of job opportunities.

"In the private banking sector, attrition rate is very high,in some cases almost 15 per cent.

Poaching is very common and banks are increasingly findingit difficult to retain their staff," a senior HR official of ICICI Bank said.

"Now we are not only seeing poaching from private sectorbanks but also from public sector banks, especially of mid- level employees,"the official added.

Courtesy: Mail Today