State Bank of India (SBI), the largest public sector bank of India, will scale down the fresh hiring for next 2-3 years.  SBI is the biggest recruiter among public sector banks in India. The decision to go slow on hiring is also due to the overflow of workforce from the merged associates.

Krishna Kumar, Managing Director of SBI said “the bank will try to maintain the employee strength at current levels even as it keeps expansion programmes in mind”.

“We will see the extent of people who are retiring from the bank from all levels. So to that (extent) we may look at replenishing that stock. We will not try to increase. Right now, we have 2.23 lakh people working with us,” said the MD.

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“So we will try to keep the figure constant between 2.2 and 2.23 lakh over the next few years. By reducing the staff all of a sudden, the other activity does not function effectively. But at the same time I should not increase my staff so much that my productivity and my expense becomes an issue,”

Business and profit per employee of SBI is below the national average. As per data on the Indian banking sector, during 2012-13, SBI’s business per employee was Rs 9.43 crore, compared with the aggregate for all banks at Rs 12.13 crore.

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Other public sector banks may follow the trend to stabilize the existing workforce and improve the productivity existing staff to cut cost.

This is a disappointing news for job aspirants, who are preparing for bank job.