Anywhere else, industry consolidation might mean layoffs – or as it’s sometimes euphemistically phrased in conference calls “improving efficiencies” – but as Massachusetts’ community banks are consolidating, the number of full-time employees has held steady or even increased over the past few years.

According to the FDIC, Massachusetts’ banking industry employed 50,124 full-time employees at year-end 2015, up from 47,406 in the prior year. Over that same period, the number of institutions themselves fell from 147 to 138.

“In one way that surprises me and in another way that doesn’t,” commented Kevin M. Tierney, president and COO at North Shore Bank.

Never mind State Street’s recent admission that it could cut up to 7,000 positions across its global footprint in favor of automation; we’re talking about community banks, the kind whose bread and butter is making mortgages and small business loans. They need people to function.

“Banks are growing, and the areas that we see in our practice that have an emphasis on strategic growth are wealth management, mortgage banking, and commercial banking” said Laura Goode, managing director with the executive search firm Kiradjieff & Goode.

As the banking industry has struggled with historically low interest rates for nearly a decade, fee income has become ever more critical for generating revenue – and along with it, the employees who work in those fee-generating functions.

Goode said her firm has seen demand ramping up in areas like wealth management and mortgage lending – and of course, commercial lending.

“In the commercial lending function, absolutely there’s a lot of demand because there is not the same level of training programs and experienced loan officers out there,” she said. “There’s always going to be demand for commercial lenders as [banks] engage in succession planning.”

But demand is not always a function of revenue to be made. As banks have faced increasing pressure from regulators to take cybersecurity seriously and increasing consumer demand for a greater variety of banking channels, they’ve beefed up staffing in tech functions, too.

Tierney said North Shore Bank had made a commitment to place as many of its new employees as it could when it merged with Saugusbank in 2014 and with Merrimac Savings Bank last year.

“But there are opportunities just because we’re growing, just because we’re consolidating,” he said. “We had virtually had no reduction in the number of staff in customer-facing position. Where we are growing are in areas of regulatory compliance and technology.”

That’s not to say that banks don’t consolidate where they can, but remember that even those smaller institutions that are now ripe for acquisition have been trimming their own bottom lines for years by this point. A desire to create scale is one of the main driving factors behind the mergers taking place today.

“Where there’s overlap in a loan processing area or back office, where they can consolidate, obviously they’re going to, but a number of these banks are strategically acquiring organizations where there isn’t always a lot of overlap,” Goode said.

 Matthew S. Sosik, president and CEO of Easthampton Savings Bank, echoed Tierney’s point about mutuality. He also said that the very nature of banking, as a people-heavy business, is part of what makes it tough to run a small bank today.

“It’s not just this notion that it’s compliance, compliance, compliance – it’s an overall structure that’s heavy on people,” Sosik said. “It requires a serious investment in human resources to run even a small bank nowadays.”

Massachusetts businesses more generally have expressed increasing concerns lately over a skills gap. Nearly half of business leaders polled recently by Santander and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce said that they anticipated difficulty finding matching skill sets for positions their companies would want to hire in the next year.

The banking industry has its own skills gaps to contend with as well, and this is where younger bankers might want to take note. Nick Riley, the recruitment and employee relationship manager at Middlesex Savings Bank, said demand is more or less constant in the commercial lending function, largely owing to the aforementioned lack of training programs.

He also had some words of wisdom for any up-and-coming bankers, whatever their area of expertise: “Never, ever turn down a networking opportunity. Always take advantage of a potential job shadow. And if you’re looking to stay in banking, see if you can identify or work with a career coach.”

Besides commercial lending, Tierney also sees a skills gap in functions like regulatory compliance and risk management. And Goode reiterated that growth is likely to happen in those areas where there’s opportunity for revenue – or pressure from regulators.

She said, “You always want to be on the revenue generating side – so customer facing experience – or if you have expertise in technology, cybersecurity, network security, that’s a skill set that could bring a lot to the table.”