Five of China’s Big Six State-owned Banks Commit to Hiring of over 60,000 New Staff Despite H1 Profit Drop

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More details have emerged on efforts by China’s big state-owned banks to help deal with the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic by stepping up their recruitment of new employees, despite an unprecedented profit drop in the first half.

Net profits at all of China’s big six banks posted considerable declines in the first half of 2020, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and calls from Beijing for them to “sacrifice” profits to the real economy.

The average decline in net profits for China’s big six banks was 11.44%, with only Postal Savings Bank of China seeing a single digit decline (9.96%). Bank of Communications saw the biggest drop in net profits, with a plunge of 14.61%.

The cumulative net profits of the big six banks was 566.33 billion yuan, for a drop of 71.4 billion yuan compared to the reading of 637.744 billion yuan for the same period of last year.

In spite of this dismal performance five out of the big six banks, including ICBC, China Construction Bank (CCB), Bank of China (BOC), Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) and Bank of Communications (BOCOM) have plans to collectively employ over 60,000 new staff, in response to calls from Beijing to stabilise employment in the wake of COVID-19.

“This year ex­pan­sion in re­cruit­ment is mainly due to pol­icy de­mands to sta­bilise em­ploy­ment,” said one source from a big state-owned bank to 21st Cen­tury Busi­ness Her­ald.

Recruitment Targets for Big State-owned Banks in 2020

Bank2020 Recruitment Target
ICBC18,000
Agricultural Bank of China15,000
China Construction Bank 16,000
Bank of China10,000+
Bank of Communications 2,800

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