Impact of merger, digitalization & automation on banking job vacancies

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Deputy Manager – Editorial

Updated on Aug 24, 2022 19:06 IST

Over the years, the number of vacancies in banking jobs has decreased due to bank mergers, automation and digitalisation. Read here for more details.

Over the years, the number of vacancies in banking jobs has decreased because of bank mergers, automation, and digitalisation. These processes have changed the organisation design, hiring process and management of employees.

Remember the old bank clerk who used to update your passbook? This is hardly seen these days. Traditional jobs such as passbook updating, cash deposit, verification of know-your-customer details, salary updation are going digital transformation thus increasing job redundancies. Banks are now implementing robotics to centralise their operations for quicker turnarounds. This has reduced the need for a manual workers at the back end.

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Due to the merger of banks, there has been a steady decline in recruitment too. The number of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) in 2017 was 27 while in 2020 it is 12. With the bank mergers, rationalisations of branches have been done and banks had to work out to optimise its resources.

Over the years, the number of vacancies in banking jobs has decreased due to bank mergers, automation and digitalisation. These processes have changed the organisation design, hiring process and management of employees.

In this article, we have discussed the impact of bank mergers, automation and digitalisation in banking jobs.

Facts and Figures

The number of IBPS Clerk vacancies has come down to around 6035 in 2022 from around 30,000 in 2015.

Similarly, the number of IBPS Probationary Officer posts dropped to 6932 in 2022 from 22,000 in 2012.

According to media reports, In 2017 before the merger, around 13,097 had joined SBI against the retirement of 11,264 employees. However, in 2018, only 3,211 employees were recruited against the retirement of 18,973. In 2019, the total employee strength decreased to 2,57, 252 from 2,64,041 in 2018.

Bank job Vacancy Trends

Discussed below are the vacancies of major bank exams announced over the years. This will help candidates to understand how the bank mergers, automation and digilisation have impacted the number of bank job vacancies.

IBPS PO

IBPS PO is conducted for recruitment to the post of Probationary Officers/Management Trainee (PO/MT). Candidates are selected on the basis of the preliminary exam, mains exam and interview. It has been observed that the number of vacancies has drastically fallen. The table below highlights IBPS PO vacancies for previous years'

Year	Vacancies
2022	6932
2021	5809
2020	4799
2019	4,336
2018	4,252
2017	3,562
2016	8,822
2015	12,424
2014	16,721
2013	21,680
2012	22,000

IBPS Clerk

IBPS Clerk exam is conducted by IBPS for recruitment of candidates in Clerical Cadre post. Candidates are selected based on prelims and mains exam. Check below the number of IBPS Clerk vacancies announced over the years.

Year	Vacancies
2022	6035
2021	12,314
2020	11,463
2019	12,075
2018	7,275
2017	7,883
2016	19, 243
2015	30,000

SBI PO

SBI PO exam is conducted by the State Bank of India for the recruitment of Probationary Officers in its various banks. Candidates are selected based on prelims exam, mains exam and Group Exercises, and Interview. Check below SBI PO vacancies for the previous years'.

Year	Vacancies
2021	2056
2020	2000
2019	2,133
2018	2,000
2017	2,313
2016	2,200
2015	2,000

SBI Clerk

SBI Clerk exam is conducted for recruitment to the post of Junior Associates (Customer Support & Sales). The selection of candidates for this post is done based on prelims and mains exam. Candidates will also have to appear for the local language test. Check below SBI Clerk vacancies for previous years'.

Year	Vacancies
2021	More than 5000 vacancies
2020	More than 8,000
2019	8,593
2018	7,200
2016	More than 17,000

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About the Author

Anangsha Patra