NUBIFIE decries poor contract staff conversion rate in banks

The National Union of Banks, Insurance, and Financial Institution Employees has said that only 1.5 per cent of outsourced staff in the financial sector are converted to full-time employees.

This was disclosed by the president of the union, Anthony Abakpa, in an exclusive chat with The PUNCH.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, as of the end of September 2020, banks operating in Nigeria employed a total of 95,888 workers. Out of this number, 40,382 of them were on contract. This means that 42.11 per cent of the workers are on contract. Institutions covered in the employment statistics include commercial banks, merchant banks, and non-interest banks.

Speaking with The PUNCH, the NUBIFIE boss decried the conversation rate of contract and outsourced staff to full-time employees.

He lamented that the conversion rate was too poor to make any significant dent in the population of the category of workers in the financial sector.

Abakpa said,” The staff strength of banks as of October 2024 stood at 91,681, inclusive of executive, senior, junior (outsourced), and contract staff. The number of junior staff (outsourced) is 68,300. The banks and insurance companies don’t want to absorb outsourced and contract staff because of age issues.

“An outsourced staff member will enter the bank at age 24, and after spending over five years as an outsourced staff member, the bank or insurance firm will say they are over age. In most cases, they placed some people on a contract renewable every two years or annually to deprive them of collective bargaining. The percentage of outsourced workers absorbed from 2020-2024 is about 1.5 per cent of the outsourced staff in all banks and insurance in Nigeria, which we considered grossly inadequate.”

The union boss revealed that on average, an outsourced worker may get N75,000 per month while the core staff gets N260,000 per month for the same work.

“Equal job but different pay, it is like the animal kingdom. Honestly, that’s where the citizens have found themselves. No career progression and no future for these categories of the workforce in their own country, Nigeria. It is unfortunate,” he decried.

He added that the new national minimum wage has boosted the pay of the outsourced staff.

“Contract staff are the industry’s backbone; they are overworked and underpaid and face systemic inequalities. In many Nigerian banks and insurance companies today, contract staffing makes up a significant portion of the workforce. Let workers in banks and the insurance sector hope to be renewed like other Nigerian citizens,” he urged.

The Federal Government under the Muhammadu Buhari administration had unveiled guidelines to guarantee better working conditions for contract and non-permanent workers in the nation’s financial institutions.

The guideline, ‘Labour Administration Issues in Contract Staffing/Outsourcing Non-Permanent Workers in Banks, Insurance, and Financial Institutions,’ was signed by the former Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige.