One signal

Swedbank is cutting around 500 jobs across its group, including about 100 in the Baltic states, ERR News reports. Chief executive Olavi Lepp says the cuts are part of a broader restructuring, not that AI caused this round of redundancies.

But AI is in the picture: Swedbank is testing it in more than 90 applications, and Lepp says some future tasks may need fewer people if using AI costs less than employing staff. He also says the bank is offering retraining, though that will not suit everyone. That is a real workforce signal, with an important distinction: possible future cuts linked to AI are not the stated cause of these layoffs.

Discuss: When a company weighs AI against staffing costs, should it have to show that workers were offered meaningful retraining before making cuts?

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