ICICI workforce down by 1,300 in three months

ICICI Bank, the largest private sector lender, saw its employee base shrink by 1,300 people in the past three months of calendar year 2011, the first such significant fall in two years.

It had 57,733 employees as of December-end, compared with 59,033 as on September 30. In the 12 months before September-end, the bank had added around 11,000 employees.

According to sources, while a part of this happened because of natural attrition, the slow growth of some businesses were also responsible for the reduction. They said the decrease in headcount happened across business segments and the highest bit was at the junior levels.

ICICI Bank confirmed the development, saying the move was to improve productivity.

“We are constantly on a productivity improvement drive and we will further tighten the numbers until we reach the desired level of productivity,” the spokesperson of the bank said.

“We believe that every organisation should simultaneously grow and keep improving productivity. So, from time to time we do not replace attrition rather (we) push the system to new productivity highs,” the official added.

The employee base was 33,700 in October 2009 and near-60,000 at the end of the first half of this financial year, driven by branch expansion and business growth.

The acquisition of Bank of Rajasthan’s operation in August 2010 also expanded the workforce, by 4,000 people.

The bank has no plans to hire aggressively for the next three to four quarters, though it will roll out more branches, sources said.

The bank had 2,552 branches at 2011-end. Sources said the rise in operating expenses was likely to be capped, as staff cost was not expected to increase significantly from the current levels.

In the past few quarters, operating expenses had been rising because of additional hiring and distribution network expansion. In 2010-11, these expenses rose nearly 13 per cent, while staff costs rose 46 per cent. In the first half of 2011-12, operating expenses were up 21.5 per cent, driven by a 31.4 per cent rise in employee costs.