Bank jobs in trouble – with banks in South Africa cutting jobs and closing branches

Bank tellers and related clerks are set to be some of the world’s most declining job roles, with international and local banks set to push forward into digital technologies.
According to the World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs Report 2025, growing digital access is expected to create 19 million jobs by 2030, but also displace 9 million.
The report surveyed over 1,000 companies across the world, with representatives from 22 industry clusters and more than 14 million workers.
“AI and data processing alone will create 11 million roles and replace 9 million,” said the WEF.
“Robots and automation, meanwhile, are forecast to displace 5 million more jobs than they create.”
This is expected to result in a sharp fall in clerical roles, with postal service clerks expected to see the largest drop.
This likely won’t be surprising for South Africans, considering the dire state of the South African Post Office, which has faced threats of liquidation, major job losses and large amounts of branch closures.
However, second on the list are bank tellers and related clerks.
Unlike the Post Office, South Africa’s banking industry has proved resilient despite a challenging operating environment.
The industry achieved headline earnings growth of 2.5% year-on-year and maintained strong profitability (ROE of 17%) in the first half of 2024.
That said, the potential loss of banking jobs aligns with recent BusinessTech comparisons, which showed that banks are cutting back on staff numbers and physical locations.
South Africa’s Big Four banks, Standard Bank, FirstRand, Nedbank and Absa, cut a combined 7,000 jobs between 2019 and 2024.
Nedbank saw the most closures, with over 3,000 staff members no longer on the books.
Standard Bank South Africa was an outlier, seeing it add over 134 staff members in the period.
A separate comparison by BusinessTech showed that the nation’s six biggest banks cut their total number of branches by 25 from FY2018 to FY2023.
Nedbank and Absa were responsible for the cuts, losing
Bank | Employees 2019 | Employees 2024 | 5-year Change |
Standard Bank (SA) | 29,578 | 29,712* | +134 (+0.5%) |
Absa | 28,595 | 27,042 | -1,553 (-5.4%) |
FirstRand | 40,233 | 37,531 | -2,702 (-6.7%) |
Nedbank | 25,267 | 22,245 | -3,022 (-11.9%) |
Total | 123,673 | 116,530 | -7,143 (-5.7%) |
Bank | Branches FY2018 | Branches FY2022 | Branches FY2023 | 5-year Change |
Standard Bank (SA) | 629 | 619 | 652 | +23 (+3.6%) |
Capitec | 840 | 860 | 866 | +26 (+3.0%) |
Absa | 640 | 621 | 618 | -22 (-3.4%) |
FirstRand (FNB) | 619 | 614 | 624 | +5 (+0.8%) |
Nedbank | 604 | 545 | 547 | -57 (-9.4%) |
Total | 3,332 | 3,259 | 3,307 | -25 (-0.8%) |
The fastest-growing jobs
“The (Future of Jobs) shows says 39% of workers’ key skills are expected to change by 2030 and technological skills are projected to grow in importance more rapidly than any others in the next five years,” said the WEF.
“As such, continuous learning, upskilling and reskilling programmes will be an ongoing priority for employers between now and the end of the decade.”
The survey showed that the three fastest-growing jobs in percentage terms are big data specialists, fintech engineers and AI and machine learning specialists.
A massive 86% of respondents to the survey expected AI and information processing technologies to transform their business by 2030.
“The green transition and the growing adoption of energy generation and storage technologies have placed roles such as autonomous and electric vehicle specialists and environmental and renewable energy engineers among the top 15 fastest-growing professions.
Although bank branches and clerical jobs are not vanishing, the nation’s biggest banks are pushing forward in the world of tech, which should cut traditional jobs but create new opportunities in technology, data, and ESG-related fields.