A credit union career isn’t for me. Change my mind. (Part 2)
Industry leaders talk about how they cultivated a career in credit unions and how credit unions across the United States can recruit enthusiastic employees to fill tomorrow’s leadership bench.
Lockdowns and quarantines forced many businesses across the United States to close their doors this spring, leaving many employees without a job. The national unemployment rate shot up to 14.7% in April — up from 4.4% in March — before ticking down slightly again to 13.3% May.
Workers deemed essential are maintaining income, but non-essential employees face unemployment and financial uncertainty. Based on first quarter data, the credit union industry avoided most of the employee attrition seen throughout the nation. Credit unions held 305,600 full-time employees on their payrolls as of March 31, 2020. That’s up 4.3% annually. And, annualized compensation per full-time equivalent (FTE) employee at credit unions grew to a record $84,100 while salary and benefit expense per FTE was 6.3% higher than one year ago, more than double the nationwide growth rate of 2.8%.
Based on ancedotal evidence, credit unions have avoided laying off employees so far in the second quarter, too, opting instead to redeploy staff members to support increased call center activity and back-office functions. It doesn’t appear the work will slow down anytime soon.
With this in mind, CreditUnions.com reached out to prominent leaders across the credit union industry to ask them three questions:
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