Barclays cutting 5,000 jobs in AI-led efficiency drive

Barclays has revealed it is cutting 5,000 jobs - 5% of its workforce - as part of efforts to save costs and drive efficiency through investment in artificial intelligence (AI).

The UK-based bank said it had already shed around 1,000 of the roles and would complete the rest of the cuts by the end of the year.

The bulk of the losses are expected in its home market, and will mainly affect operational and functional roles, but Barclays said its workforce would be hit globally.

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Group chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan said the cuts - part of a recent drive for greater profitability - were borne out of "investments which we've made into technology over a number of years and which we continue to make".

He added: "AI has an important role to play and may have a more important role to play in the future.

"I've often said that it is the icing on the cake - it's not the cake - because you need to do the infrastructure build to get the benefits of AI.

"Where the infrastructure is modern, we've been applying it here."

It's a trend being seen across financial services companies as AI-led work processes are seen as reducing the need for human involvement in many back office functions, including development.

A strong example of this came in the spring when the boss of Standard Chartered bank spoke of a need to replace "lower-value human capital" while revealing plans for thousands of job losses.

A Barclays spokesperson said: "We are positioning Barclays for the future, building the workforce and skills needed to deliver our strategy and meet the evolving needs of our customers and clients.

"In doing so we are committed to helping our colleagues develop and build rewarding careers, while meeting the changing needs of customers and clients and ensuring Barclays continues to succeed in the years ahead."

The job cuts were revealed as Barclays reported profits for the third quarter of £2.3bn.

The figure was up 12% on the same period last year but missed analysts' forecasts as its fixed income ​trading business underperformed.

Shares were down more than 2.5%.

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