Job cuts at major bank: Barclays cuts 5,000 jobs after AI investments

dpa | The major British bank Barclays wants to cut 5,000 jobs by the end of the year. This is made possible, among other things, through the use of artificial intelligence, as the company announced. A fifth of the jobs have already been lost, the remaining 4,000 should be eliminated by the end of the year.

The job cuts are part of larger cost-cutting measures and correspond to around 5 percent of the 93,000 employees worldwide. The majority of the savings relate to private customer business, but some also relate to investment banking. The majority of jobs being cut will be in internal support and central functions. This also includes the reduction of developer positions because artificial intelligence increases productivity.

The measures are “the result of the investments we have made and continue to make in technology over several years,” said Barclays boss C.S. Venkatakrishnan, according to the British news agency PA. "We will use AI on a large scale. But AI is the icing on the cake, not the cake itself," the Financial Times quoted the CEO as saying.

Barclays wants to save around 300 million pounds (around 358 million euros) by the end of the year. This marks the end of a three-year package of measures to make savings and invest in technology. For the third quarter of this year, the major bank recorded a pre-tax profit of 2.3 billion pounds (approx. 2.74 billion euros) - 12 percent more than in the same period last year.