DBS Layoffs: DBS Group plans to cut 4,000 temporary jobs over the next three years as it expects artificial intelligence (AI) to take on roles carried out by humans. According to news agency Reuters, DBS Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Piyush Gupta said that despite the layoffs, the company plans to add 1,000 new positions in AI. DBS Group’s Gupta is among the first major banking chiefs to discuss the possible job losses due to AI in the future.
“In my 15 years of being a CEO, for the first time, I’m struggling to create jobs. So far, I’ve always had a line of sight to what jobs I can create. I’m struggling to say how I will repurpose people to create jobs this time,” said the outgoing CEO. Southeast Asia’s largest lender has 8,000 to 9,000 of such staff.
Attributing his outlook to the advent of AI, Gupta said, “AI is very powerful. It can self-create and also mimick”. Pointing out that AI is “different”, Gupta said in the last ten years, there have not been any job cuts in the group.
Also Read: Apple to invest $500 billion, create 20,000 US jobs; joins Meta, SoftBank in $1 trillion push
DBS Layoffs: How the Singapore bank plans to add ‘AI jobs’
The CEO reminisced that 2016-17, the banking major embarked on a digital transformation that impacted 1,600 people. Gupta added that almost all of them were repurposed in consultation with unions and representatives. However, he added that the current challenge in the age of AI also revolves around how to repurpose the workforce in the Singapore-based bank.
The group is using AI across the business now, including customer outreach, credit underwriting and hiring, Gupta said, adding that its first brush with AI in 2012-13 was not very successful. A DBS spokesperson told Reuters that the 4,000 jobs lost would be temporary, contractual staff members of the DBS Group working across 19 markets on specific projects.
Gupta said the bank has been cautious about relying fully on AI for customer outreach because of aspects like hallucinations. Still, it had made its first use case of reaching customers directly and plans to broaden its base by the end of the year. “DBS started implementing generative AI solutions two years back, and all the benefits of generative AI are yet to be seen,” he said.
“We expect the reduction in workforce will come from natural attrition as these temporary and contract roles are completed over the next few years,” the spokesperson said, adding that the permanent staff across its operations would not be impacted. Tan Su Shan will succeed DBS CEO Piyush Gupta on March 28, 2025, as the leader of Southeast Asia’s biggest bank.
According to a Bloomberg Intelligence Report, global banks will cut as many as 200,000 jobs in the next three to five years as AI encroaches on tasks currently carried out by human workers. Several companies’ Chief information and technology officers surveyed for the report indicated that, on average, they expect a net three per cent of their workforce to be cut.
