Shriram Finance employs 3,536 people in Q3 hiring drive, to add 1,000 in Q4

At a time when startups are dishing out pink slips in large numbers and tech titans are tightening their belts by showing the door to thousands of employees, India’s largest retail lender, Shriram Finance (SFL), is going on a recruitment drive as it witnesses strong business growth.

The company has raised its workforce by 10 per cent this financial year, hiring 3,536 people in the third quarter alone, in a move driven by strong business growth. In the current (January-March) quarter too, SFL is planning to add around 1,000 employees. The company’s staff strength stood at 60,918 in December 2022. The expansion has also been triggered by the additional staff requirement after the completion of the merger of Shriram Transport Finance Company, the largest financier of commercial vehicles, and Shriram City Union Finance, the largest financier of two-wheelers and a pioneer in financing MSMEs. The exercise has made Shriram Finance the largest retail NBFC in India.

SFL added employees in the areas of sales, marketing, collections, recovery, accounting and credit analysis. “Our business growth is strong. With the merger now completed, we need more people. While we added more than 3,500 during the third quarter, mostly for cross selling and upselling of products, we plan to add another 1,000 in the current quarter,” said S Sunder, joint managing director, Shriram Finance.

The company’s total assets under management(AUM) stood at Rs 1.77 trillion on December 31, 2022, as compared to Rs 1.24 trillion as on December 31, 2021. During the quarter, its net profit rose by 161 per cent year on year (YoY) to Rs 1,776.9 crore on higher growth in net interest income and improved asset quality. The non-banking finance company’s net interest income for quarter ended December 2022 (Q3FY23) expanded by 85.42 per cent YoY to Rs 4,427.8 crore. During the third quarter, the AUM growth was driven by robust growth in passenger vehicles and Personal/MSME loans. After the merger, the number of branches increased from 2,820 to 2,901 due to expansion in areas like Odisha, Bihar, West Bengal and North East.