HSBC mulls AI-driven cuts, with up to 20,000 jobs at risk: Bloomberg

HSBC Holdings PLC is said to be mulling up to 20,000 artificial intelligence (AI)-driven job cuts as part of a medium-term plan spanning three to five years, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.

The cuts, if carried out, would affect around 10% of the company’s workforce, starting with non-client facing roles in global service centres, placing the bank alongside other major firms that announced AI-driven job cuts earlier this year and in last year’s fourth quarter.

Discussion of the cuts, which were still in preliminary stages, reportedly began before the war between the US-Israel and Iran, but no final decisions have been made yet. 

Earlier this month, Block CEO Jack Dorsey said he believes more companies will make similar structural changes, after Block cut nearly half of its workforce.

In January, Amazon laid off around 16,000 workers, confirming an earlier report from Reuters that cited anonymous sources. The company also laid off about 14,000 white-collar jobs in October last year, including over 1,800 engineers. That same month, similar moves were made by Meta and educational technology firm Chegg.

According to Bloomberg, HSBC CEO Georges Elhedery is looking to use AI to shrink the company’s middle and back offices. Meanwhile, HSBC CFO Pam Kaur said at a Morgan Stanley conference on Wednesday that the bank saw ways to use AI to reduce costs and boost employee productivity.

A spokesperson for HSBC declined to comment on the report.

The said job cuts come as HSBC targets US$1.5 billion (S$1.9 billion) in cost savings by the first half of the year, six months earlier than planned.

In other news, analysts have said US companies have been “AI-washing” job cuts instead of attributing the massive layoffs to tariffs, overhiring, and cost-cutting. A former Amazon manager also said AI is being used as a “cover story” for the company’s layoffs, which cut 30,000 jobs in just three months. /TISG

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