Demand for entry to junior-level frontline manpower in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector has increased 20%-25% in 2024 compared to a year ago. The increased demand has come amid a surge in housing loans, personal loans and credit cards, even as the financial services industry continues to combat high attrition, reports The Economic Times, citing Indian staffing industry executives. The executives said the surge in demand, particularly in sectors such as insurance, housing, NBFCs (non-banking financial institutions) and retail banking, isn't limited to tier-1 cities as tier-2 and -3 cities are also experiencing a notable uptick.

"The demand for entry-level sales positions is surging within the BFSI sector," said Aditya Narayan Mishra, CEO, Ciel HR Services. "We can attribute multiple factors to the rise in demand: increased confidence among the households about the future prospects of our economy, a longish period of muted growth in the sale of consumer products and homes; and finally an aggressive push from the sellers of these product categories."

Kartik Narayan, CEO-staffing at Teamlease Services, said several open positions have come up for Q1. "The demand is fuelled by attrition, refill and growth." There is a lot of demand coming in from the microfinance sector, he said. "Attrition still poses to be a major challenge for companies," he added.

The average annual attrition in frontline roles in the BFSI industry is 30-40%, according to industry estimates. In certain sectors, such as insurance, attrition is as high as 60-70%, while retail banking is facing talent exits in the range of 35-40%. In broking, annual attrition is about 25%, as companies continue to lose out manpower to peers in the sector or to other industries, said industry insiders. Alok Kumar, president-manpower, ManpowerGroup India said, "There is demand coming in bulk in the BFSI sector in the first few months of the year. Companies are looking to hire in sales, customer support, back-end technical staff and others. In the frontline, there is a YoY demand growth of 20-25%."