While some banks plan to streamline staff or reduce wages amid the difficult situation to the Covid-19 epidemic, some other banks expect to recruit more staff or rotate staff. State-owned banks tend to hire more credit staff. Private joint stock banks cut costs and increase productivity. The demand for salesmen has increased to promote the cross-sale of insurance products.
At the end of July, Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Industry and Trade of Vietnam (VietinBank) announced the recruitment personnel for the headquarter with 48 places and for branches with 185 places. Previously, the bank continuously made announcement on recruiting staff with more than a hundred places each time.
VietinBank is also the unit which recorded the most volatile personnel transfer in the first half (H1) of 2020. In the recent three months, the bank has for five times announced the decisions on mobilising and appointing personnel for titles of deputy general director, head/ deputy head of departments in the headquarter, directors of branches, many staff members, etc.
At the 2020 annual general meeting (AGM), Chair of the Board of directors (BOD) of VietinBank Le Duc Tho said that the bank is not aiming to reduce personnel because it needs to build the workforce for the future. The bank will restructure and arrange staff in a way that is suitable to the capacity and able to increase the productivity of each department.
Similarly, Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank) has continuously posted recruitment information at its headquarter and branches mainly in specialist positions. The bank also appointed many director-level personnel and managers at the headquarter in mid-June.
In the 2020 personnel plan, Vietcombank expects to increase personnel scale by 12 percent to 2,270 people, and raises the ratio of salary expense to pre-tax profit from 27 percent to 37%. general director of the bank Pham Quang Dung once said that that the AGM, the bank would not lower salaries of employees, and if any, will only lower the income of the management board. The management board will try to control the list and credit quality to minimise the negative impact of disease.
Commercial Joint Stock Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV), from the beginning of the year, also announced the recruitment of more than 40 positions, mainly credit and information technology staff, etc.
Not only Vietnamese banks, HSBC also has plan to hire over 500 credit staff in Asian region despite the complicated development of the Covid-19 epidemic in early March, with the target to penetrate into asset management market.
In the opposite direction, many private joint stock banks have plan to stop recruiting and lower staff salaries to save costs. Typically, Vietnam Prosperity Commercial Joint Stock Bank (VPBank) in the first half of the year cut more than 4,200 employees. general director of the bank Nguyen Duc Vinh at the AGM said that the bank will strive to restructure, cut costs, increase productivity and optimise the processes in 2020.
Similarly, at Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB), the workforce was cut from 15,691 people to 14, 969 people. The bank’s management board mentioned in the report at the beginning of the year that the expenses that are not urgent in difficult context, according to the instruction of the Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV).
Saigon Thuong Tin Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Sacombank) also reduced its workforce, restructured its apparatus, cut nearly 600 employees in six months to nearly 18,640 people.
For Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank (TPBank), after increasing the number of employees in the first four months of 2020, the bank’s general director shared that he would stop recruiting new employees and not increase salaries for employees this year. In difficult situation, it is necessary to reduce costs and increase productivity in order to meet the development needs.
Representative of Petrolimex Group Commercial Joint Stock Bank (PGBank) also said that the bank will not recruit more staff in 2020, only internally transfer staff and recruit additional staff to replace the ones that resign. At the same time, the bank will restructure its inefficient transaction points.
Saigon Hanoi Commercial Joint Stock Bank (SHB) said that leaders of the bank’s BOD, Management Board and senior managers of the bank voluntarily reduce their salaries by 50 percent until the announcement of the end of the outbreak. The income of all system managers from the deputy manager will be reduced by 10-30 percent depending on the salary level.
From April, HCM City Development Commercial Joint Stock Bank (HDBank) also lowered business salary by 10-25 percent to cope with the complex situation of the epidemic, applicable to employees with a total salary of 10 million dong or more.
According to Navigos Search’s Q2 recruitment report for middle and high-level personnel in Vietnamese market, banks are still in the process of reviewing operating costs under the Governor’s direction, leading to the fact that recruitment demand has slowed down and has not shown signs of resuming, particularly for high-level personnel segment.
However, for the segment of employees and specialists, there has been a trend of large recruitment for sales positions to support cross sales of life insurance products from Q2.
