According to media reports, the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) has lamented the practice of casual, contract and outsourcing staff policy in the banking sector.
According to the President of the association, she claimed the percentage of banking sector workers who fall within the casual, contract and outsourced category stands at 65.0%. This implies just 35.0% of banking sector staff can be considered core employees.
While official statistics for staff within the casual and outsourced category is unavailable, data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics puts the percentage of contract staff to total banking sector workforce at 44.0% as at Q1 2019. This is a significant increase from 27.8% as at Q1 2016 when NBS started to publish this data.
To manage the increasing cost of banking operations in Nigeria especially regulatory costs as well as the tough economic environment, banks have sought to find ways to manage costs, one of which is a reduction in staff costs.
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Thus, while the banking sector staff strength has grown by 29.5% over the past three years, many of the hired staff have been contract staff. According to NBS data, over the past three years, there has been a 14.6% decline in the number of Senior staff, an 8.9% increase in the junior staff number while the number of contract staff is up 104.8%.
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