Comments
The much-coveted ‘bank jobs’ seem to be losing their appeal. The numbers say so.
There has been a discernible fall in the number of candidates registering themselves for clerical and probationary officer/management trainee positions at public sector banks (PSBs), reveal data from the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS).
IBPS conducts recruitment tests for about 20 PSBs apart from a few private financial institutions. SBI, however, recruits on its own.
The number of candidates registered with IBPS for clerical jobs declined from 20.31 lakh in FY17 to 19.67 lakh in FY18. For probationary officer/management trainee posts, the registrations were down from 19.67 lakh to 11.27 lakh. A similar trend is seen for specialist officer posts as well.
The reasons are varied. “There is negative feedback from new employees about the nature of the job, the long hours and work pressures, which is leading to disillusionment,’’ CS Vepa, Director, National School of Banking (NSB), told BusinessLine. The decline in vacancies also discourages some from applying, he added.
A recent recruitee at IDBI Bank said there was so much “pressure” in project finance that he took medical leave to avoid a tricky situation.
Around 2010, there had been a surge in the number of technology graduates opting for bank jobs; now they are looking elsewhere. The pressure on execution of government schemes and stressed assets are deterrents, according to a top executive of a Mumbai-based PSB.
PSBs are seen to be additionally unattractive thanks to the increased increased regulatory oversight.
“Additionally, there is also an issue with regard to a career progression and the learning that a person can get in the public sector,” said Ajay Shah, Vice-President, Recruitment Services, TeamLease.
Also, young job seekers are factoring in the rapid shifts in businesses globally, which has made the concept of “secure jobs” almost irrelevant.
Dip in vacancies
There has been significant fall in bank vacancies, too. The number of vacancies as per IBPS notification came down approximately from 33,488 in FY15 to 19,243 in FY17 and to 7,883 in FY18.
Similarly, the probationary officer vacancies came down from 16,721 in FY15 to 8,822 in FY17 and 3,562 in FY18.
During FY18, SBI’s employee strength fell by 18,973 due to retirements, etc but only 3,211 joined. The total staff strength came down from 2,79,803 as on April 1, 2017 to 2,64,041 as on April 1, 2018.
(With inputs from Venkatesh Ganesh in Bengaluru)
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.