MUMBAI: ICICI Bank , the country’s largest private sector lender by assets, has let go 1,200 of its staffers, and a few hundred may be on their way out as part of an exercise to cut flab, two people familiar with the development said.The retrenchment of staff across the board – from general managers to junior officers – is intended to improve efficiency at the bank as it competes with rivals such as HDFC Bank that enjoy a premium with investors.“The redundancies are due to restructuring,” said K Ramkumar, executive director and head of human resources at ICICI Bank. “Every organisation should periodically renew itself and let go of people periodically. Otherwise, the organisation will decay.”ICICI Bank is among the biggest private sector employers in financial services with about 70,500 people on its rolls.About 3% of the total workforce may be eventually impacted, though the job cuts would be staggered over three to six months as ICICI will factor in many aspects, including medical emergencies and school education of children.“Once in three years, it is the bank’s strategy to look at the larger space and see if there is a need to merge or split jobs,” said Ramkumar. “That leads to some redundancies.”Although ICICI Bank is known for its toughness when it comes to eliminating inefficiencies, it did not cut jobs during the economic slowdown in 2012-13 and in 2008-09.It also exempts staff on maternity leave, and those whose children are taking tenth, or 12th class board examination. However, job cuts at ICICI Bank may be good news for rivals who are looking for talent in an economy that is poised to return to an annual economic expansion of about 6% soon after plunging to below 5% for the past two years.“The financial services space will see growth with many critical projects being cleared,” said Aditya Narayan Mishra, president staffing at Randstad India, a headhunter.“We will see job creation in the capital markets space, investment banking, wealth management and consultation business. The BFSI space would see one lakh new jobs being created.”Already, stock brokers, private wealth managers and investment bankers are lapping up people anticipating brisk business in the next few years as a new government promises brisk economic activity. Standard Chartered, Barclays and Bank of America Merrill Lynch are hiring.“We will look to hire 10-15% more, mostly in Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai where our employee strength is less,” Atul Singh, managing director and head of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management had told ET.