Equating to the loss of 5% of its 93,000 global staff, job cuts come as bank announces jump in quarterly profits
Barclays is cutting 5,000 jobs as part of wider cost-cutting plans that its bosses say are being driven by advances in AI.
The job cuts will mean losing about 5% of the bank’s 93,000 global staff, with executives confirming they had already cut 1,000 workers since the start of the year.
The bank’s chief financial officer, Anna Cross, told reporters on Thursday that the job cuts were part of plans to save more than £1.1bn in 2027. “These actions involve an expected reduction of circa 5,000 full-time employees. Around 60% of the group actions relate to support functions, including fewer developers, as AI makes our people more productive.”
When asked how many of the total job cuts would be directly linked to advances in AI, the 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,” Venkatakrishnan said, calling 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 ramps up the use of AI.
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