This follows an earlier pledge by the bank in March that it will not layoff any of its 30,000 employees worldwide as a result of the pandemic.

Of the 3,000 new jobs, more than 2,100 are full-time roles, representing about 19% of the group’s current workforce of about 11,000 employees in Singapore.

The roles to be filled are in areas experiencing growth during the pandemic, such as wealth management, corporate banking, risk management, data analytics, operations and technology. To continue to enable the roll-out of more digital tools for both customers and employees, OCBC says it will also be hiring more technology related roles on top of reskilling non-tech employees in preparation for an upsurge in digital channel access.

The remaining 900 roles are a combination of traineeship and internship positions, with more than 500 positions earmarked for recent graduates in areas such as corporate banking, data and technology.

OCBC says it will continue to offer traineeship positions to help jobseekers who are looking for a career switch in new technology areas such as Cloud computing, cybersecurity, and full stack development, within the financial services sector.

Group CEO Samuel Tsien says: “We will offer internships, traineeships and graduate talent programmes, and continue to work with various partners and government bodies to ensure that those new to the workforce can gain a strong foundation through these programmes. For mid-career professionals, we have opportunities in wealth management, corporate and commercial banking, compliance and several other functions across the group."

Despite the ongoing pandemic, DBS in Singapore in March committed to hiring over 2000 people this year, including 360 jobs for seasoned professionals in growth technology areas, while Santander last week vowed vowed to hire 3000 IT professionals worldwide as it pushes on with its digital transformation plan.