MUMBAI: Increasing technology adoption, coupled with slower than needed recruitment to replace retiring staffers as part of cost-cutting given the margin compression banks have been experiencing since the pandemic, has seen eight of the 12 public sector banks having a lower number of employees at the close of fiscal 2025 than they had in the year to March 2021.
While these 12 banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) had 8,31,630 employees on their rolls as of March 2021, the number fell to 7,58,172 in March 2025, a decline of 73,458 in this period, according to the annual reports of these banks, which did not specify whether all of this is due to retirement or if there are other reasons like annual attrition.
While the decline in percentage terms is the steepest at the Chennai-based Indian Overseas Bank which saw its staff strength plunging by 11% to 20,966 in FY25 from 23,579 in FY21, in absolute numbers, the declining trend is captured the best by the nation’s largest lender SBI, which saw its headcount fall by 10,132 from 2,46,353 to 2,36,221.
On the other hand, only four of them added employees during this period. While the third largest public sector lender Punjab National Bank has seen a marginal increase from 1,01,802 to 1,02,746 during this period, the mid-sized Bank of Maharashtra added 2,059 more to its payrolls from 12,532 to 14,591.
Similarly, the fourth-largest Central Bank of India too saw a marginal rise in the headcount from 32,340 in FY21 to 33,081 as of March 2025 and so did another mid-sized lender Punjab & Sind Bank from 8,890 to 10,229 during this period.
The second-largest state-run lender Bank of Baroda saw its employee strength decline from 51,459 in FY21 to 50,564 in FY25, while the fourth-largest Canara Bank saw its headcount decline from 88,231 to 81,260, and Bank of India too had a steep decline — from 42,601 to 39,778.
Uco Bank also saw the numbers falling from 22,021 to 21,049, while Union Bank of India’s employee count fell from 78,203 to 73,945, and Chennai-based India Bank saw the numbers declining from 41,629 to 40,942 during this period.