The Kenyan banking industry added 1,826 new jobs in 2023 to hit 37,933 staff members on the back of expansion including opening of more branches.
This marked a 5.1 percent jump from the 36,107 jobs recorded in 2022, according to the new banking supervision report published by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK).
The new hirings, which came at a time lenders embarked on an aggressive expansion drive that saw them unveil 41 new branches across Kenya’s 21 counties, were however 49.8 percent lower than the 3,667 new staff onboarded in 2022.
Last year, Nairobi County registered the highest increase in the number of new branches, growing by 15 in a period that also saw five bank branches in five counties shut down.
The expansion rate in 2023, which brought the number of bank branches in the country to 1,511 up from 1,475 in 2022, dwarfed that of the previous year where only 16 new outlets were unveiled.
“Large peer-group banks had the largest increase in the total number of staff mainly due to increase in branches and other outlets,” the report says.
During the review period, new hiring covered management, supervisory and secretarial staff categories which added 513,400 and 920 posts respectively, while seven clerical roles were shed off.
The staff additions in the banking sector contributed to the ballooning of operating costs coming at a time the industry recorded an 8.8 percent dip in profit before tax to Sh219.2 billion down from Sh240.4 billion in the year ended December 2022.
“Salaries and wages increased by 14.3 percent to Sh134.5 billion in December 2023 from Sh117.6 billion in December 2022. Salaries and wages as a ratio of income decreased from 15.8 percent in 2022 to 15.0 percent in 2023 reflecting a lower increase in staffing costs compared to the increase in income,” states CBK.
According to the regulator, the year-on-year slowdown in hiring rates was partially as a result of efficiencies brought to the fore by growing adoption of technology solutions across the industry.
“In 2023, a bank employee was on average handling 2,495 deposit accounts whereas in 2022, an employee was handling 1,816 deposit accounts. The increase in efficiency is explained by the increase in the number of deposit account holders as compared to the increase in the number of staff,” the industry regulator noted.
Subsidiaries of Kenyan banks had a combined employee count of 11,460 at the close of last year, marking a three percent jump from 11,125 employees in the preceding year which was primarily driven by the expansion of KCB Group to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The DRC accounted for 3,514 or about 30 percent of the total number of subsidiary employees.
