The 5,000 job cuts are part of a wider cost cutting drive that Barclays bosses said has been driven by advances in artificial intelligence. The majority (60%) affect support roles. The job cuts will mean getting rid of about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff.
The bank’s chief financial officer, Anna Cross, told reporters that it was part of plans to save more than £1.1bn in 2027. These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5000 full time employees, around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including theory developers. AI makes our people more productive.
When asked how many of the total job cuts would be directly linked to AI, chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan said the bank had been making “deep investments” in technology and simplifying its processes. That is driving the bulk of the efficiency gains that you’ve seen so far. AI has an important role to play and may have a more important role to play in the future.
He called AI the“icing on the cake” to modernising the bank’s technology. We have been focusing on the infrastructure build, and where the infrastructure is modern, we’ve been applying AI. The news comes months after another UK-headquartered bank, Standard Chartered, announced plans to cut more than 7,000 jobs over the next four years as it ramped up the use of AI.
It will mean slashing around 15% of its back-office roles by 2030.
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