The number of employees working in Equity Bank (Kenya) reduced by 415 to 7,763 last year from 8,178 in 2022, according to lender’s latest sustainability report.

    ▪    Other subsidiaries such as Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan also witnessed marginal drop in number of staff during the same period.

    ▪    However, the Kenyan arm generated more opportunities to new employees adding 1,123 staff, about half the number of new employees hired in 2022.

    ▪    In 2023, the South Sudan subsidiary added only 6 employees in a year which saw the subsidiaries headcount decreased to 122 from 127 in the year 2022.

The Group’s total number of employees hit 12,120 last year from 11, 812 in 2022 with 41.3 per cent of permanent staff being women. 27 per cent of women are in senior management while 34.8 percent are in management.

Equity Group has operations in seven markets: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, South Sudan, Rwanda, DRC and in Ethiopia where it operates a representative office. Of these, Tanzania and Uganda lead in gender diversity with a 51:49 ratio of male employees to female employees, while South Sudan tails the other subsidiaries with a 69:31 percent ratio. Pay Parity “We are focused on addressing the pay parity gap across all subsidiaries and Group functions. Currently this gap averages 1:1.25, which is an improvement from 1:1.32 from the previous year,” Equity Group says in the report.

Key challenges in addressing pay parity gap includes the number of men in senior positions with longer service than their female colleagues in similar roles. In addition, some countries have more men in the management levels of the organization structure than women. We are taking proactive measures to progressively address this disparity, including gender balanced shortlists at recruitment stage, internal equity salary adjustments during the salary review cycle and hiring more women at senior management levels,” the lender says. Equity Group’s profit after tax for the period ending 31 December 2023 declined by 5 per cent to KSh 43.7 billion from KSh 46.1 billion in 2022. The decline in profitability is attributed largely to a significant 128.7% increase in loan loss provisions with gross non-performing loans increasing sharply by 81.5% year-on-year.