State Bank of India (SBI) has scaled down its recruitment for the current financial year. The banking behemoth will hire about 11,000 officers and clerks this year.

“We will be recruiting about 6,000 clerks soon. The process for filling up 5,193 officer posts has just begun,” the Chairman of SBI, Mr Pratip Chaudhuri, told Business Line here.

Last week, SBI had released a notification for the recruitment of 4,987 officer for its associate banks and 206 officers for its own requirement.

However, in comparison to previous years, the number of positions to be hired has decreased significantly as of now.

For instance, in 2009-10, SBI hired over 25,000 officers, clerks and specialist officers for various roles in rural banking, marketing, advisory services, technical and legal operations.

While exact figures on recruitment during 2010-11 is not immediately available, sources in SBI put the number at around 20,000, besides 15,000 business correspondents in rural areas.

When asked whether the apparent decrease in hiring this year was due to cost-cutting efforts, Mr Chaudhuri said: “The recruitment will depend on many factors such as retirements and number of branches to be opened.”

He, however, did not rule out the possibility of filling up more number of vacancies later in the year which is not a common practice.

Setback for job aspirants

Whatever may be the reason, this would definitely disappoint aspirants of bank jobs.

“The bulk recruitment in public sector banks for the last two-three years was primarily driven by State Bank of India. Any slowdown in its hiring plans will adversely impact the overall employment prospects in the banking sector,” said the Director of a leading coaching institute for bank jobs.

But other banks would continue their hiring spree though not in large numbers, he added. Some banks, including Reserve Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Allahabad Bank and Indian Bank had already commenced recruitment process for about 5,000 positions of officers and clerks.

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