Crisis is not for bankers

After almost two years of crisis, the terms “redundancy” and “restructuring” do not exist for the banking industry, but only for its clients, with banks avoiding to significantly scale down their branch networks and headcount.
The 42 banks on the market in the first half racked up losses of above 50m euros, but bankers are shying away from axing administrative expenses unlike other private companies: just 3% of employees have left the system in the past year, while the number of branches has dropped by 265, namely by 4%.
In mid-2010, the banking system employed 67,151 people, around 2,000 fewer than in June 2009. Bankers insist that personnel cutbacks applied so far have been largely “natural” ones.
For the second half of the year, bankers anticipate rising uncertainty and an ever steeper loan demand slump. None of them is foreseeing any restructuring steps in the banking system, though.
On the contrary, the overall rhetoric is “we’re closing some branches, but we’ll try to open others, depending on opportunities”.
Also, bankers are still the highest-paid employees, given that despite monthly fluctuations the average net salary is not going below the 3,000 RON/month threshold with few exceptions.