This year may bring another record in terms of layoffs in banks. The pandemic and digitization are to blame – “Rzeczpospolita” writes. posts.
“If nothing will change, 8.3 thousand people may decline in the whole year. jobs (5.5 percent), which would be a new shameful record. Although the industry is increasing the scale of its operations year by year, for over a decade the number of its employees has already decreased by almost 18 percent “, Rzeczpospolita points out.
The daily notes that the layoffs under the microscope show the most important trends in banking. One of them is the industry’s profitability that has been deteriorating for several years due to high regulatory, capital and bank tax requirements.
“In addition, there was a pandemic cut in interest rates in 2020, which resulted in a decline in revenues. It was therefore necessary to conduct another wave of layoffs in search of savings. Banks can afford them without compromising business and the quality of customer service thanks to digitization. The pandemic only accelerated this process. Since its outbreak, the number of active users of mobile banking and transactions performed in this way has clearly been growing “, Rzeczpospolita emphasizes.
Customers visit bank branches less frequently
“Visits to wards are becoming less and less frequent. Most likely, customers have changed their habits permanently, so banks will still be able to reduce the number of branches and the number of jobs assigned to them. It comes to this automation in bank headquarters, which allows for further reduction of employment ” – notes the journal.
The newspaper reports that some of the layoffs are also the result of numerous bank mergers in recent years. Mostly, however, branch employees are made redundant, and in recent years there have been more jobs in headquarters.
“Banks now need more experts in IT, data analysis and risk, counteracting money laundering or lawyers, not necessarily specialists in finance and economy “, Rzeczpospolita emphasizes.
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