Jayne Whyte's Portfolio

The nation’s banking industry, has once again, downsized its workforce by 550, raising the number of disengaged workers in the sector to about 3,000 in recent months. specifically only Finbank employees were involved in this latest exercise, under the integration scheme of the two merging financial institutions. FCMB has earlier laid off 320 members of  its own staff, to achieve “a right size of employees for future growth”.


Under the FCMB/Finbank integration plan, 44 branches of the latter will be shut down, with concomitant whittling down of the staff strength by 30 percent. The business combination agenda of the two banks are expected to increase FCMB branch network to 278, from the current 139.

Despite the face of poverty in the country today, men and women, who have built their careers in the banking sector have had their jobs threatened, facing serious job insecurity and so many others lost their jobs.  Often, women bear the brunt of disengaging workers of both banking institutions; a wife to a married (banker) man, female (women) bankers and old women who look up to their (banker) children for financial support and so on.


It is a difficult situation especially in Nigeria, when women’s access to health, education, capital, technology and land is severely limited. Men and women typically do not have the same access to opportunities, resources and influence. Therefore, poverty alleviation for women means not just an increase in their income, but an increase in opportunities, including their access to productive resources, such as land, capital and technology skills, training and participation in decision-making.


Who pays the price?………..The women, the children…….the entire family!