India’s leading private sector banks are shifting their focus from workforce expansion to higher productivity by increasing investments in AI, automation, and digital technologies. During FY26, HDFC Bank, Axis Bank, and Kotak Mahindra Bank together reduced their workforce by more than 7,700 employees while continuing to expand their branch networks and technology capabilities.
HDFC Bank recorded the largest decline, with its employee count falling by 3,343 to 2,11,178 as of March 31, 2026, from 2,14,521 a year earlier. The reduction was mainly in the non-supervisory workforce, which declined by more than 8,100 employees. At the same time, the bank added 15 senior management executives, 1,252 middle management employees, and 3,543 junior management employees, reflecting a shift towards a more skilled workforce.
Managing Director & CEO Sashidhar Jagdishan said, “As we accelerate the transformation towards becoming a technology-led, customer centric bank, employees need to keep pace.” He also said the bank was “consciously redeploying talent from backend functions, where we are able to bring technology-led efficiencies, to customer facing roles.” During FY26, more than 50,600 employees received AI training, over 2,100 were trained on Microsoft Copilot, and the bank delivered more than 1.36 crore learning hours.
Axis Bank reduced its workforce by more than 3,100 employees to around 1,01,300, despite adding nearly 400 branches. Executive Director Subrat Mohanty said, “We continue to see headcount optimisation as the investments we have made in technology over the years are now translating into productivity gains.” He added, “We expect the benefits of AI on headcount, if any, to become clearer over the next year as these capabilities mature.” The bank expects AI to deliver “meaningful bottom line impact” over the next 18-24 months and plans to embed AI across 40-50% of operational journeys within 18 months.
Kotak Mahindra Bank’s workforce declined for the 2nd consecutive year to 74,054 employees from 75,323 in FY25. The bank expanded hiring in software engineering, DevOps, cloud infrastructure, and AI & Data Engineering while enabling around 6,500 internal role movements through its AI-powered “My Kareer” platform. Managing Director & CEO Ashok Vaswani said, “headcount optimisation is being achieved through process simplifications and technology.” Employee attrition also improved to 32.5% from 33.3% in FY25 and 39.6% in FY24.
During FY26, Axis Bank expanded to 6,275 branches, HDFC Bank to 9,680 branches, and Kotak Mahindra Bank to 2,276 branches. ICICI Bank is yet to release its annual figures.
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