Banks employed 12,253 people in Q2 — 97% were contract staff

The staff strength of banks in the country increased by 12,253 people in the second quarter of 2018 (April -June) but 11,942 of this total figure were employed as contract staff.

According to the Selected Banking Sector Data: Sectorial Breakdown of Credit, ePayment Channels and Staff Strength (Q2 2018) report released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the staff strength increased from 89,608 to 101,861.

Companies often prefer contract staff to full-time staff because they would not have to pay contributory pension or insurance claims for them.

This means that the cost of employing full-time staff is higher than the cost of hiring contract staff.

A breakdown of the figure showed that the number of senior staff increased from 16,941 to 17,144.

The number of junior staff increased from 40,444 in the first quarter to 40,549 in the second quarter.

The number of contract staff increased from 32,013 to 43,955.

According to the bureau, the automated teller machine was the preferred mode of electronic payment, recording a total of 217.4 million transactions valued at N1.6 trillion.

NIBSS instant payment recorded 168.6 million transactions and point of sale machines (POS) recorded 67 million transactions.

“In terms of credit to the private sector, the total value of credit allocated by the bank stood at N15.34 trillion as at the second quarter,

“Oil and gas and manufacturing sectors got credit allocation of N3.45 trillion and N2.02 trillion to record the highest credit allocation as at the period under review.”