PSBs have 33,000 vacancies, use 1 lakh contractual and outsourced workers
As per a written reply in response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said that as on June 30, as many as 32,567 positions were vacant at state-owned banks across officers, clerks, and sub-staff. The split was as follows: 17,500 vacant officer positions, 12,861 clerks, and 2,206 sub-staff.
'The requirement of manpower in each PSB is determined by the respective PSB keeping in view various factors which include, interalia, business requirement, spread of activities, superannuation and other unplanned exits. Appointment of officers and staff is done accordingly by the PSBs and it varies from year to year based on their requirements,' Chaudhary said, adding that in the last five years, a total of 1.49 lakh staff had been recruited by PSBs, with another 48,570 employees in the process of being hired for 2025-26.
To be sure, the vacant positions account for just over 4 per cent of the total manpower PSBs require. As at the end of the June quarter, PSBs had a requirement of 7.91 lakh, and had filled 7.58 lakh – or 95.9 per cent – of them.
Interestingly, the number of staff required by PSBs has been steadily declining. From 7.9 lakh in 2020-21, the number of employees at India's state-owned banks declined in each of the next three years, according to data furnished by the Minister of State for Finance to the Rajya Sabha on July 22.
In 2021-22, the number of PSB employees was down 1.6 per cent, and fell another 1.3 per cent in 2022-23, before posting another 1.6 per cent fall in 2023-24. The last financial year, 2024-25, saw a marginal increase of 0.4 per cent to 7.58 lakh.
Over the aforementioned five-year period, only four PSBs reported an increase in the number of employees: Bank of Maharashtra (up 16 per cent), Punjab & Sind Bank (up 15 per cent), Central Bank of India (up 2 per cent), and Punjab National Bank (up 1 per cent). Leading the staff shedders was Indian Overseas Bank, whose headcount was down 11 per cent in 2024-25 compared to 2020-21. On the whole, the number of PSB employees was down 4 per cent in 2024-25, the finance ministry had told the Rajya Sabha on July 22.
The decline in the number of PSB employees has occurred despite a rise in their business. In March 2024, the loans given by PSBs stood at Rs 85 lakh crore, up 38 per cent from March 2021 – the period during which these banks reduced the number of employees on their books in each of the three years and by a total of almost 35,000.
Meanwhile, on Monday, Chaudhary told the Lok Sabha that PSBs utlitised the services of as many as 1.01 lakh outsourced or contractual workers as at the end of June. These staff, the Minister of State for Finance said, are used for non-core activities of banks such as housekeeping, security guards, and ATM guards, among others, and were in line with the Reserve Bank of India's guidelines.
Siddharth Upasani is a Deputy Associate Editor with The Indian Express. He reports primarily on data and the economy, looking for trends and changes in the former which paint a picture of the latter. Before The Indian Express, he worked at Moneycontrol and financial newswire Informist (previously called Cogencis). Outside of work, sports, fantasy football, and graphic novels keep him busy.
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