NBS: Banks’ workforce shrinks by 10.15% to 10,520 in 2 years
Nigeria’s banking industry shed 10,520 jobs between the end of Q4’19 and the end of Q4’21, findings by New Telegraph show.
According to latest data obtained from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the staff strength of the country’s deposit money banks (DMBs) stood at 93, 090 as of the end of December 2021.
Given that in an earlier report released in April last year, the NBS had put the total staff strength of the lenders at 103, 610 as of the end December 2019, it means that in the two-year period, 10, 520 (10.15 per cent) employees either resigned or were laid off.
New Telegraph’s analysis of the NBS’s data, however, shows that the pace of job losses in the banking industry slowed during the period under review.
Thus, total staff strength of the DMBs, which stood at 103,610 at the end of Q4’19, fell to 96,975, 94, 498, 95,888 and 95,026 at the end of Q1’20, Q2’20, Q3 and Q4’20 respectively.
Similarly, the NBS data in indicates that although DMBs’ staff strength dropped to 94, 681 at the end of March 2021 and even fell further to 92, 780 and 92, 699 at the end of June and September 2021 respectively, it increased to 93, 090 at the end of Q4 of last year.
Further analysis of the data indicates that of the industry’s total staff strength of 93,090 as at the end of December, last year, 23 Commercial Banks accounted for 90, 455, six Merchant Banks accounted for 710, while three Non-Interest Banks had a combined workforce of 1, 925 employees.
In addition the NBS’ latest numbers show that as of the end of December 2021, the 90, 455 Commercial Banks’ staff strength was made up of 200 Executive Staff; 16,390 Senior Staff; 35,193 Junior Staff and 38, 672 Contract Staff. This means that Junior and Contract staff accounted for about 82 per cent of Commercial Banks’ total workforce as at the end of last year.
Analysts note that as part of their efforts to stay profitable amid rising competition with Fintechs, coupled with a harsh operating environment, DMBs have in recent years, focused on mainly hiring employees that fall into the category of workers, known as contract or outsourced staff.
However, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) had warned against the practice due to what it says is the involvement of such staff in bank frauds. In 2017, NDIC disclosed that findings by its research team revealed that most of the insider abuses perpetrated by banks were by contract staff, who were given sensitive duty schedules involving direct dealings with customers’ money and records.
Although the pace of job losses in the banking industry seemed to have slowed compared to 2020, when the Covid-19 crisis accelerated the digitilisation of payments, leading to many banks resorting to shutting down branches they could afford to close without hurting their bottom line, experts believe that the industry will continue to shed jobs as more Nigerians embrace electronic banking.
(New Telegraph)
