State Bank of India to hire 2,000 POs, 8,300 clerical staff in fiscal 2018 after a massive reduction in workforce

The State Bank of India (SBI) is reportedly planning to hire as many as 10,300 employees - 2,000 probationary officers (POs) and 8,300 clerical staff - in fiscal 2018 following a reduction in its workforce, according to a media report. Retirements and digitisation of operations have resulted in a massive reduction of around 15,762 employees in the state-owned lender’s workforce, according to a Moneycontrol report. [caption id=“attachment_4189817” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Reuters.[/caption] “A large part of the reduction is due to the retirement of about 12,000 employees and [an] additional 3,500 employees from associate banks opting for  voluntary retirement scheme post-merger [of five associate banks].” SBI, on Tuesday, reported a standalone net loss at Rs 7,718 crore in the March quarter, owing to higher provisions for bad loans and gratuity, and lower trading income. The country’s largest lender, which last year merged six banks into it, had reported a net loss of Rs 3,442 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous year. However, excluding the results of the six banks, the bank had reported a net profit of Rs 2,814.2 crore in the March 2017 quarter. This is the second consecutive quarterly loss for the bank, which had reported a loss of Rs 2,416 crore in the December 2017 quarter. In January, the lender issued a notification regarding the recruitment of 9,366 junior associates or clerks in the bank. On 16 May, the  Business Today reported that SBI received around 9.75 lakh applications for 2,000 vacancies at the probationary officers level and over 16.6 lakh applications for 8,300 vacancies at the clerical level.