Société Générale is to hire 5,500 staff in France this year, providing optimism in an industry that has seen tens of thousands of job losses since the credit crisis erupted last year.

France’s second-largest bank, which is recovering from January’s rogue trading scandal that cost it €4.9bn ($7.2bn), says it has tripled its headcount over the past 10 years and now has 151,000 employees worldwide.