There are times even in these flat-earth days when Rudyard Kipling seems to be alive and kicking. “East is East and West is West,” he had written. “And never the twain shall meet.”

In the West, banking jobs are under threat, According to a Reuters analysis of job cuts announced by 29 major banks, as many as 1,60,000 have faced the axe since early last year. This may be a conservative estimate as there are smaller banking institutions that have closed for business. There, it is not just pruning of the employee rolls; no one has a job left.

More importantly, analysts say that many of the positions that have been made redundant will never be filled. On the one hand, the industry is shrinking. On the other, technology is making a human interface redundant in many cases.

The disastrous showing at many venerable banks over the past few years and the lack of ethics that has brought them to their knees has also caused disquiet amongst aspiring MBAs. A report from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania says that students are no longer as interested in banking careers as they used to be. Yes, some crusading types want to go in and clean up the system. But most feel that it is wiser to give the whole sector a wide berth.

What’s happening in India? Finance minister P. Chidambaram has just announced that public sector banks will go on a recruitment spree next year. These banks will take on 63,200 people, to add to their roster of 8,00,000 employees.

Of course, Chidambaram the politician is playing to the gallery. But it is also true that public sector banks are recruiting. Their private sector and international counterparts are downsizing and this is impacting India (see chart). But this does not affect the populist stance of the politicians.

Is banking in India so different that it need not follow the global drum? There are some obvious deviations. More than half of India is unbanked. Spreading the banking culture to the people will need more hands. And the economy is growing. At the same time, however, all banks have found that there is a point beyond which it becomes a loss-making proposition to penetrate further into the hinterland. Most people looking for bank jobs would not like to be posted to the boondocks anyway.

Banking in India is a growth sector and that explains a lot. “But there is a difference in the complexion of jobs on offer. Most of the posts are clerical. Abroad, such clerical stuff has long been relegated to computers. It is an irony that most of this software emanates from India, but there is no market for it here.

That said, banking will always need human intervention. You need people in the front office. You will require them in marketing. And, at the top level, a computer can never replace a rainmaker. Unfortunately, the people being hired by the public sector banks expect to only push files, physically or on the network. It is only a handful of them who will be able to graduate to more accomplished jobs.

The file pushers will disappear soon too. Today, security reasons have made it necessary that big banks not farm out too much of their backroom work. Financial institutions have to set up their own data processing operations. But, sooner or later, all this will be outsourced. The clerical jobs in banks will move to the BPOs. Banks pay a lot even at such junior levels; BPOs do not. In the years following liberalisation, public sector banks were forced into voluntary retirement schemes to stay competitive. That will happen again to Chidambaram’s recruits unless they grow with the job.

The trouble with state-run banks in India is that the employees and unions feel a job there is a long break for biscuits and tea. But one day the twain — East and West — will meet.

NOT BANKABLE?

The banking industry is cutting jobs at home and abroad

Swiss banking major UBS will slash 10,000 jobs worldwide, including some in India

Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs — four of the most glamorous names in the now-disgraced investment banking industry — are laying off high-level staff in India, albeit in a soft, staggered manner. The cut could be as high as 25 per cent

HSBC is on a global cost cutting drive and, as a part of it, the bank has reduced its employee strength by 22,000 during January-September

Bank of America is speeding up planned job cuts as revenue continues to decline. The second-largest US bank intends to slash 16,000 jobs by the year-end

Investment banks and brokerages across Asia have launched a sweeping round of job cuts as Europe’s debt crisis and China’s economic slowdown bite into the region’s financial activity. CLSA, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, and UBS are among the banks and brokerages that cut jobs

Source: Recent newspaper reports