Google Killed 400,000 trees in Finland so more data centers could be built to fire more people
Dutch Government Plans to Cut 25,000 Jobs in AI-Led Overhaul
Barclays to slash 5,000 jobs in AI cull
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/10/22/barclays-to-slash-5000-jobs-in-huge-ai-cull/
Bank cuts support roles in the City’s latest round of artificial intelligence-related redundancies
Barclays is to cut 5,000 jobs that will be replaced by AI in one of the biggest tech-driven employment culls yet seen in the UK.
The bank said it had already removed 1,000 supporting roles in the first half of the year, which included many developers. It expects to cut 4,000 more roles in the second half.
The redundancies will push Barclays’ restructuring costs to around £600m this year, double what it had planned to spend. However, the job cuts will help it save more than £1.1bn in 2027.
So far this year, the bulk of the cost savings have been in its UK bank, where they doubled from an average of £76m in 2024 and 2025 to £158m.
Barclays’s plans are the latest in a string of AI-related job cuts announced by lenders.
Bill Winters, the boss of Standard Chartered, was criticised earlier this year for referring to AI replacing “lower-value human capital” as he announced 8,000 redundancies.
HSBC is planning to use AI to reduce the ranks of its UK financial advisers by almost 70pc, it emerged last month.
It comes as the City increasingly expects John Healey to raise taxes on banks in the Budget next week. This could be done by reversing cuts to the bank surcharge made by Jeremy Hunt, which would raise more than £2bn a year.
CS Venkatakrishnan, the chief executive of Barclays, noted that banks already paid a significant amount of tax, saying that any tax was a “question of proportion and of market signalling”. However, he added that he appreciated that the Chancellor was in a difficult position.
He said: “He is the man in the arena and I deeply respect the responsibility on his shoulders and I wish him well.”
Barclays revealed the job cuts as it reported £2.3bn in pre-tax profits for the third quarter, a 12pc increase from last year.
A weak performance in its fixed income trading business, where profits dropped by 19pc year on year, meant it missed City expectations. Stock trading income grew 47pc to £1.01bn thanks to recent market volatility.
The lender is moving towards giving its bankers more bonuses and lower fixed pay to reward good performance, which it expects to increase costs by £130m in 2027.
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, the union that represents Barclays workers, said the bank was using AI as a smokescreen to push through redundancies.
She said: “Barclays workers deserve better than this. The company is using AI as an excuse to discard its loyal and long-suffering workforce.
“Employers should be focused on upgrading employees’ skills so that they remain employed as new technology changes the workplace. Instead, Barclays is guilty of taking a short-term, knee-jerk approach.”
A Barclays spokesman 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.”
American Express to axe 3,500 jobs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/10/23/american-express-to-axe-3500-jobs/
Credit card giant to cut around 5pc of its workforce in efficiency driveAmerican Express is poised to cut around 3,500 staff as the credit card company seeks to offset rising costs, raising the prospect of redundancies in the UK.
Steve Squeri, the company’s chief executive, said it would axe 5pc of its 78,000-strong workforce.
It remains unclear where the cuts will be made within American Express’s global workforce. The company has 1,500 employees based in its London office.
Mr Squeri said that the job cuts were part of an effort to make American Express more efficient and speed up decision making across the business.
American Express posted third-quarter earnings which beat estimates, with Mr Squeri saying that the company’s “momentum continues”.
However, costs climbed about 9pc to $14.5bn (£10.9bn) in the third quarter. US bank regulators fined American Express $350m in October after the lender failed to identify potential money laundering activities worth billions of dollars.
Mr Squeri said American Express needed to become more “agile and efficient”.
Banks and other financial companies around the world have been shedding their job count in recent months as they look to streamline costs and continue to implement artificial intelligence across workflows.
Barclays announced this week that it would eliminate 5,000 jobs this year in one of the biggest tech-driven employment culls yet seen in the UK. HSBC and Citigroup are also cutting jobs.
Unite has accused Barclays of using AI as a smokescreen to push through redundancies, a charge the bank has denied.
Bill Winters, the boss of Standard Chartered, previously faced widespread criticism for referring to AI replacing “lower-value human capital”, as he announced 8,000 redundancies.
Volvo loses £1bn in value as it slashes 2,500 jobs
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/10/23/volvo-loses-1bn-in-value-as-it-slashes-2500-jobs/
Embattled carmaker suffers share price slump after revenues dive by a quarter
Volvo has announced plans to slash 2,500 jobs after a sharp fall in sales triggered a share price slump that has wiped £1bn from its value.
Shares in the company, which is owned by Chinese group Geely, plunged as much as 31pc after it revealed revenues fell by 23pc in the third quarter.
Volvo announced a 5bn Swedish kronor (£376.4m) cost-cutting plan that will result in around 2,000 job cuts in Sweden and another 500 globally “through natural attrition and by targeted exit packages to employees”.
The car manufacturer warned it may have to take “additional actions” after revenues in China fell by almost 50pc and it was hit by the loss of electric car subsidies in the US.
Volvo issued a profit warning and pulled its annual guidance earlier this month as sales declined.
Hakan Samuelsson, Volvo’s chief executive, said on Friday: “We continue to operate in a very tough environment with strong external challenges: de-globalisation, hypercompetition and climate change.
“The third quarter of 2026 was very disappointing and reflects a year that has become far more challenging than originally anticipated. Our ongoing turnaround plan therefore needs a decisive reinforcement.”
Volvo is the latest European car manufacturer to announce sweeping job losses. In July, BMW revealed it would cut 8,000 jobs in an attempt to reduce costs. Earlier this year, Volkswagen said it would cut as many as 100,000 roles out of a total workforce of 650,000. The move is expected to result in the closure of four factories.
Jaguar Land Rover, Britain’s largest car manufacturer, said in September that it would cut 4,000 jobs over the next two years.
Volvo’s revenues in the three months to the end of September slumped to 66.9bn Swedish kronor (£5bn), a 23pc decline from the same period a year earlier.
The car manufacturer also fell to a net loss of 5.7bn kronor (£429.2m) in the third quarter, down from a net profit of 4.5bn kronor (£338.8m) a year earlier.
Volvo, which had bet heavily on electric vehicle sales, said the axing of customer incentives in the US under Donald Trump had dented its revenue.
In 2024, the carmaker scrapped a target of transitioning to selling only electric cars by the end of the decade.
Last month, Volvo said that Mr Samuelsson would leave as chief executive next year, with Klaus Zellmer, the boss of Skoda Auto, due to take up the Volvo chief executive of the Swedish car manufacturer “no later” than October next year.
Microsoft puts up to 60,000 jobs at risk
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/10/26/microsoft-puts-up-to-60000-jobs-at-risk/
Microsoft has put up to 60,000 jobs at risk, including roles in the UK, as the tech giant seeks to trim costs.
The company, which has 223,000 workers globally including 6,000 in Britain, has offered thousands of workers a type of voluntary redundancy in an effort to cut its headcount.
Staff across the United States, Canada, India and the UK will be offered the “buyout” package, which allows workers to leave with a lucrative package, with those affected working in finance, HR, AI, Microsoft Copilot and the company’s Xbox division.
Workers in data centres, sales, marketing, cybersecurity and quantum computing will not be offered the deal.
The move comes as Microsoft seeks to shrink the number of workers as it turns to AI to complete more tasks.
Amy Coleman, the chief people officer at Microsoft, said: “This offer gives eligible employees who may be considering a future outside the company a new choice to make that transition now with support.
“This is a time-limited, voluntary program that gives those who are eligible the opportunity to leave Microsoft with financial support and career planning resources.”
She added that the voluntary buyouts provided Microsoft divisions with “another way to adapt their workforce to changing needs”.
The move follows waves of layoffs in recent years that have cut tens of thousands of roles across the company.
The company offered buyouts to retirement-age staff in July, with more than 30pc of 8,750 eligible workers accepting.
Microsoft said it expected a lower acceptance rate for this round than for the earlier voluntary retirement programme.
The hiring slowdown comes as heavy capital investment in AI and data centre infrastructure continues to sap budgets across Silicon Valley tech giants.
The headcount of Meta, one of the biggest spenders in the AI boom, has fallen by more than 20,000 from its late-2022 peak.
Google-owner Alphabet also offered voluntary buyouts across several divisions last year, with an executive of the company reportedly telling staff that anyone who was not “all in” on AI was eligible for a voluntary departure package.
Elon Musk also told Twitter staff in 2022 shortly after buying the company that they needed to commit to an “extremely hardcore” culture or accept severance.
Microsoft, which is expected to report results on Wednesday, was contacted for comment.