Barclays cuts 5,000 jobs as AI does more with fewer developers

Barclays announced Thursday it will cut around 5,000 jobs — roughly five percent of its 93,000-person global workforce — by the end of the year, leaning on artificial intelligence to make back-office operations more efficient. The UK bank told journalists it has already eliminated 1,000 positions and will cut another 4,000 before December, with the cuts expected to center on its home market.

The wider signal is in the numbers: outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas says AI has now been cited in US job-cut announcements covering 120,136 positions — 21 percent of all announced cuts, the leading stated reason. The Federal Reserve's October Beige Book reports five of twelve districts seeing firms cut staff, delay hiring, or scale back job creation after AI-driven productivity gains.

The caveats, preserved from the reporting: unemployment stays low — 4.2 percent in the US, 4.7 percent in the UK — and Barclays itself posted a 12 percent rise in Q3 pretax profit to £2.3 billion, though that missed consensus and its shares are down 12 percent this year.