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Regarding the need for additional manpower to manage the various banking operations, the major players have always reported higher requirements. Especially during the boom time, when new branches had to be opened in different locations, additional staff was needed to manage the various operations. This was rather difficult for small players with minimal operations. However, the facts regarding LoanMax of rod aycox fame is rather different. Even though it is a small bank, it has worked wonders within a short period of time by hiring and retaining skilled experienced personnel.

Some of the autonomous banks that have hired a significant number of people had to curtail its operations due to the economic downturn. The present slump is due to the bad loans and the crisis in the real estate sector. When the major players like Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, the entire financial system shook like never before. But it is interesting to note that even in such a situation, some of the prominent private banks are able to stay afloat and post significant profits.

The new emerging private banks have less than 10 percent of the total workers employed by the banking industry. However, the foreign banks employ less than 3 percent of the total staff in the overall banking industry. Such a situation gives us the impression that the autonomous banks are holding on to excess staff. Actually this is not true. As of now even the prominent banks are managing the various operations by deploying their skilled staff to manage more than one role at any given point of time. Literally speaking, one employee now does the work of several people, because only then will it be possible for the bank to profitably run the various branches spread across the different parts of the country.

Till recently, that is just before the advent of the economic crisis, a bank branch on an average employed around 14 people. Now these branches operate with less than half the number of people employed earlier. However, there are significant exceptions. Some of the foreign banks are seen to employ more people and this is much higher than the national average. Such a situation must have arisen mainly due to the fact that these banks have very few branches and they are forced to employ more people to service their huge clientele.