The PSU banks have seen a significant dip in the number of vacancies over last few years. It has been seen that the banks are short on staff at all the branch levels. Whether in rural areas or in urban areas, the steepest fall has been seen in the number of vacancies of clerical and subordinate staff. Even the bankers have agreed to the lack of hands.
To rectify the situation, the Finance Ministry, recently, had a meeting with the Chiefs of state-run banks. It focused on discussing the recruitment measures taken by the organisations and seeking a monthly report of the same.
According to the figures collected till March 2021, there is a rise of 28% in the number of branches of Public Sector banks in the last decade. There were 86,311 PSU branches across the country with 1.4 lakh ATMs as compared to the 67,466 branches with 58,193 ATMs. It can be seen that the number of ATMs has almost doubled.
Despite a major rise in the number of bank branches, RBI’s data show that the number of employees have hardly seen a change with 7.76 lakhs in 2010-11 to 7.71 lakhs in 2020-21. Even amidst these steady figures, the number of officers have seen an increase of 26% which points out to the decline in the number of clerks and subordinate staff members.
| Post | 2010-11 | 2020-21 | Change in Percent |
| Officers | 3.1 | 3.9 | Increase by 26% |
| Clerks | 3.1 | 2.7 | Decrease by 13% |
| Subordinates | 1.5 | 1.1 | Decrease by 27% |
| Total | 7.76 | 7.71 | Decrease by 0.6% |
To get a better idea about the number of jobs for clerical posts in the last few years, we can take a look at the number of vacancies released by the top recruiting authorities. The major recruiting bodies for banking personnel are IBPS (Institute of Banking Personnel Selection) and SBI (State Bank of India). It has been noted in the last few years that the number of vacancies have seen major dips. From 2016 to 2022, the total clerical vacancies announced by the two recruiting bodies are given below.
| Year | SBI Clerk Vacancy | IBPS Clerk Vacancy |
| 2022 | 5486 | 6035 |
| 2021 | 5454 | 7858 |
| 2020 | 7870 | 11463 |
| 2019 | 8593 | 12075 |
| 2018 | 7200 | 7275 |
| 2017 | – | 22711 |
| 2016 | 13700 | 24604 |
The primary reasons for this decline in the clerical and subordinate jobs is the growing use of technology and lack of hiring. The Finance Minister’s meeting, thus, is a move to remedy this and create more job opportunities. In June 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked all government department and organisations to hire 10 lakh people by December 2023. Following that, he has now asked all the Ministries to come up with their action plan for the same.
Recently, Finance Minister has addressed the need to hire employees with the knowledge of local language to manage the front desks. The banks are yet to chalk out their plans on this. It has been reported that Sanjay Malhotra, Financial Services Secretary is going to meet the bankers and discuss their timebound action plan for these recruitments, as well.
Comments are closed.