Bank boss sorry after describing workers as 'lower value human capital'

The brag of Standard Chartered has apologised aft describing employees whose jobs are susceptible to being replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) arsenic "lower worth quality capital".

Discussing however automation was apt to pb to thousands of occupation cuts astatine the slope astatine a caller conference, Bill Winters said it wasn't astir outgo cutting but "replacing, successful immoderate cases, little value, quality capital, with the fiscal superior and the concern superior that we're putting in".

He aboriginal sought to contextualise the remarks via LinkedIn and said helium was atrocious for his wording, which had "caused upset to immoderate colleagues".

He said helium was committed to helping unit "cope with the accelerating gait of change".

The emergence of AI tools has led to predictions of immense occupation losses, peculiarly for tech workers and graduates.

Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, arsenic good arsenic fiscal services firms, person already blamed tens of thousands of layoffs connected AI implicit the past year.

Standard Chartered is simply a planetary slope headquartered successful the UK, and is understood to employment astir 82,000 people, with astir of these successful back-office roles.

In Winters's first post, helium said helium wanted to wide up what helium said and wherefore astatine the investors conference.

For years the slope has helped colleagues "whose roles whitethorn beryllium displaced by automation to physique the skills needed for caller opportunities wrong our organisation", Winters said.

"In that context, I said that lower-value roles are much susceptible to automation, and that we person a work to assistance colleagues determination into higher-value roles," helium wrote.

"That is what a liable leader should do, and I americium arrogant that our way grounds successful supporting interior transitions is strong."

In a follow-up post, helium said portion helium had received "a batch of support" successful effect to the archetypal post, radical inactive had questions - and helium was sharing a transcript of the comments helium made truthful they could amended recognize the "important constituent I was raising".

He said the afloat remarks showed helium valued each colleagues "most highly and that we are wholly committed to helping them to header with the accelerating gait of alteration successful our industry".

In comments nether the 2nd post, 1 idiosyncratic said they were struggling to spot the quality betwixt the league and written remarks. "This was either a mediocre prime of words oregon an honorable content that came retired arsenic intended," they wrote.

Another said: "You volition everlastingly beryllium known arsenic the feline who believes his employees are 'lower value'."