The boss of a $52 billion investment bank has described a plan to slash 8000 jobs over the next four years as a reduction in “lower-value human capital”.
Standard Chartered chief executive Bill Winters told reporters this week there would be job “reductions in favour of machines, and that will accelerate as we go forward into AI (artificial intelligence)”.
“It’s not cost-cutting,” Winters said.
“It’s replacing, in some cases, lower-value human capital with the financial capital and investment capital we’re putting in.”
The comments are the latest public admission from a major financial or tech institution on the rapid path towards greater AI integration in the workplace.
And Australia is not immune — thousands of local jobs have either been replaced or put on the chopping block already this year.
Aussie tech darling Atlassian earlier this year announced plans to lay off 1600 workers, 10 per cent of its global staff, to restructure the business around an increased use of AI.
About 16,000 jobs have been cut at Amazon, 2000 at WiseTech, 1600 at Meta, 4000 at Block, 1000 at Salesforce, 800 at eBay and 780 at Pinterest so far this year.
But it is the reference to workers as “lower-value human capital” that is setting off alarm bells.
Karlie Cremin, the chief executive of Dynamic Leadership Programs Australia (DLPA) and Crestcom ANZ, said it was “one of the more derogatory ways people have been referred to”.
“It feels like a timewarp to the 1980s,” she told nine.com.au.
“How could you think people will stay motivated in your organisation when you’re referring to them in that way, it’s just insane.”
She said these kinds of announcements usually meant a redundancy period with a long tail, which could leave workers feeling in a state of limbo for several years.
“He (Winters) is going to need these people over at least four years,” Cremin said.
“They don’t know what the AI rollout is going to look like for them – I don’t know any organisation that really knows how it’s going to happen.”
Cremin said such comments trampled on the social contract between an employer and the employee.
“Other organisations who have already gone down this path have realised that a lot of what humans bring is judgement, and other things that aren’t quantified in monetary value – and those places are learning that the hard way when they shed workers,” she said.
“Hopefully there are enough places out there that still value respecting their workforce. But I do think that workers are being backed into a corner.”