The total strength of the staff is now 86,450, with employee cost increasing to 3.5 per cent.
Most of the banks have reduced their total staff strength recently, due to a slowing economy, mergers and adoption of technology in their operations. HDFC bank had also decreased the number of employees, by bringing down its total staff count from 95,002 in September 2016 to 83,750 in June, 2017.
Earlier, the Bank had reduced the total staff count by 4,581 in a single quarter—October to December, 2016. This drastic action was taken to justify the staff strength and bring about efficiency in the system amid slow growth.
However, with the Bank’s good performance recently, 2700 new employees have been hired during July to September, increasing the total strength to 86,450 at the end of September.
The employee cost, however, has increased by 3.5 per cent.
Paresh Sukthankar, deputy managing director at HDFC Bank said, “We saw a reversal in our hiring as we added 2,700 people. On one hand we are driving growth on increased productivity and efficiency, and on the other, we are seeing increasing business volumes across products and wider geographies. So, wherever we require to increase headcount, we are adding people.”
The Bank has slowed the physical expansion of its branches recently. It has added only 14 branches this fiscal, since April. Last year, it added only 180 branches. The Bank plans to add only 150 to 200 branches per year now, whereas earlier it used to add 300 to 400 branches annually.
These measures have helped HDFC reduce its core cost-to-income ratio to 42.6 per cent from 45.9 per cent last year.
Also, in the September quarter, the Bank had a 20 per cent jump in the net profit due to higher interest income and other income.