Banks who are restructuring have indicated that a few hundred employees are at risk of retrenchment.
The Banking Association of South Africa (Basa) said in a statement that South Africa’s big banks remain net job creators despite the upcoming strike to protect banking workers’ jobs.
According to the statement, South Africa’s six largest banks had 152,441 employees in 2018, some 400 more than the total of 148,500 employees in 2015.
The statement said that given the strong growth in smaller banks and financial technology companies, the financial system in total remains a growing employer.
South African Society of Bank Officials (Sasbo) still plans to strike on Friday 27 September, in protest of many big banks that have issued restructuring or retrenchment notices.
Sasbo says the banking sector can avoid job losses through attrition, redeployment, incentivised retrenchment and retirement packages, among other measures.
However, banks say they are already doing this. In a statement, Basa said that South African banks are painfully aware of the high rate of unemployment in the country. Basa members who are restructuring their businesses have indicated that a few hundred employees are at risk of retrenchment.
