MADISON, Wis.–Credit unions have become significantly more productive over the last 16 years, according to the latest Trends Report from CUNA Mutual Group.
In its just-released analysis of data through October of 2016, CUNA Mutual’s economists noted that back in 2000 it took on average 0.38 full time credit union employees to manage every $1 million in assets. Today that ratio stands at 0.21, a 45% improvement in productivity, or 2.9% increase in productivity per year. Today there are 268,013 full time employees working at credit unions managing $1,300,000 million in assets, CUNA Mutual stated.
“The number of employees working at credit unions today would have been 494,000 (0.38 x 1,300,000) if credit union employees had the same level of productivity they did back in 2000,” CUNA Mutual said in its analysis. “The result: 225,988 (494,000 – 268,013) jobs were not filled due to improvements in human and physical capital. Smaller asset-size credit unions reported bigger improvements in productivity ratios over the last 16 years; however, larger credit unions are still more productive due to their economies of scale.”