Ukrainian banks slash 20% of employees over 2 years

MOSCOW. Feb 20 (Interfax) - The number of bank employees in Ukraine has been cut by 24,000, or 19.8% over the last two years, and amounted to 97,000 at the end of 2023, Ukrainian media reported, citing the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU)'s banking sector review.

"For the first time since the beginning of the crisis, banks have reported on the recorded number of full-time employees: it was expectedly slashed in all groups of banks," the NBU said.

According to the findings, the number of employees of banks with foreign capital was cut the most by 14,400, or 42.9%, to 19,200.

For almost two years of the crisis, private banks have laid off 5,200 employees, or 15.7%, down to 27,900.

Employees of state-owned banks, whose number grew to five out of 63 operating banks after the nationalization of Sense Bank, were cut by 4,400, or 8.1% to 50,000.

In particular, the country's largest bank PrivatBank laid off 2,300 employees, or by 9.9%, and at the end of last year, it employed 20,500, while the other state-owned banks employed 29,400, which is 2,100 or 6.8% less than two years earlier.

As a result, the share of bank employees working in state-owned banks rose to 51.5% from 44.9% before the crisis.

The NBU noted that the number of structural branches of banks for October-December 2023 went up for the first time by 40 branches after the crisis in 2014-2015, but a total of 198 branches were cut last year, of which more than a quarter were in banks that were being shut down.

The shares of foreign, private and state-owned banks, including PrivatBank, by number of branches in the system have not changed since the third quarter of last year.