Staff strength in banking sector drops by 8.05% in 2020 — NBS
By Kayode Tokede
The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has disclosed that staff strength in the banking sector dropped by 8.05 per cent in one year to 95,888 in fourth quarter (Q4) of 2020 from 103,610 in fourth quarter of 2019.
The bureau in its “Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength” report on Sunday stated that staff strength between Q4 and Q3 dropped by 0.90 per cent to 95,026 from 95,888.
According to the breakdown, NBS reported 92,754 reported staff strength in the Commercial banks; 775 Microfinance Banks and 1,497 Non- Institution Bank.
The report stated that Commercial Banks reported 209 staff strength in Q4 2020 while senior staff was at 17,017 in the period under review.
According to the report, executive staff strength in the banking sector grew by 6.64 per cent to 257 from 241 while its Year-on-Year growth closed at 39.67 per cent. The bureau reported 184 executive staff strength in Q4 2019 to 257 in Q4 2020.
According to the report, senior staff strength dropped to 17,381 in Q4 2020 from 18,180 in Q4 2019 while Junior staff strength moved to 37,590 in Q4 2020, a decline of 5.78 per cent from 39,896 in Q4 2019.
However, contract staff strength in the banking sector dropped by 12.24 per cent YoY to 39,798 in Q4 2020 from 45,350 in Q4 2019.
The report also stated that a total volume of 3,464,811,083 transactions valued at N356.47trillion was recorded in Q4 2020 as data on Electronic Payment Channels in the Nigeria Banking Sector revealed.
“Online transfers dominated the volume of transactions recorded. 2,227,449,949 volume of Online Transfer transactions valued at N120.27trillion were recorded in Q4 2020,” the report added.
However, the Bankers’ Committee, an umbrella body of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officials and managing directors of banks, had warned that “No bank in Nigeria shall retrench or lay-off any staff of any cadre (including full-time and part-time).”
