Big U.S. banks will automate away 200,000 jobs in the next 10 years

nanoguy

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Automation has been disrupting various industries for a few decades now, thus reducing the need for human workers. It's the reason why companies like Amazon are spending millions of dollars to retrain employees to take on new roles, even if such initiatives are relatively rare.

Big banks have been pouring billions of dollars towards the development of technology to replace menial jobs in their organizations as well. This could make banking services cheaper, but at the same time there's a workforce the size of a small city that will lose their jobs as a result. A new report by Wells Fargo says US banks will slash more than 200,000 jobs in the next decade. To put this figure in proper context, Wall Street analyst and lead author of the report, Mike Mayo, told the Financial Times that this represents 10 percent of total bank jobs.

The analyst looked at the overall impact technology will have on the banking industry, especially in terms of efficiency. They note that artificial intelligence could reduce mortgage processing costs by 10 to 20 percent, and cloud solutions as well as telemetry-based marketing could provide more savings on top of that.

The banking sector is interesting to analyze because it has the highest spending in technology upgrades of all industries, which is estimated at around $150 billion per year. That's why most of the cuts are expected to be in back offices, call centers, front offices, and branches. The headcount in these departments could decrease anywhere from 20 to 30 percent, paving the way for better ATMs, chatbots, and software tools that assist in the decision-making process.

However, for all the talk about using predictive algorithms and big data to make banking better for customers, the report signals the start of a race to automate everything for the sake of remaining competitive, which is going to impact a significant amount of workers who can't easily find other jobs. The Financial Times notes that Citigroup is also looking to slash "tens of thousands" of jobs, and a former head of Deutsche Bank has warned that as many as half of its 97,000 employees could be replaced by technology.

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Wish they could "automate away" the bank presidents/ceo's and board members that get to hob knob around while we earn very little on CD's, savings and what not. ;)
And that is the question, isn't it? While the CEO's slash jobs at the lower level, the boards will probably raise CEO pay and the customer will likely see very little, if anything at all. Not to mention the toll in lower-level workers who just might be thrown out on their collective a$ses with little or nothing going to them to retrain them for other work.
 
This news is as exciting to end customers, as that of a casino bringing in new ways to get your money. This can end up only in one way, with simple folks setting the bank on fire, and hope that the blaze will be high enough to get the board and the CEO-s.
 
The part that says "in the next 10 years" means no one cares. In 10 years there wont be banks to begin with.
Its the same as some car manufacturers say that their electric car is coming in 2030... just to fool peple that they are still relevant.
 
And that is the question, isn't it? While the CEO's slash jobs at the lower level, the boards will probably raise CEO pay and the customer will likely see very little, if anything at all. Not to mention the toll in lower-level workers who just might be thrown out on their collective a$ses with little or nothing going to them to retrain them for other work.
You're right, just like all those people who were worried email would ruin the postal service. We should all hop on one leg to make more jobs.
 
And ATM fee's continue to grow significantly .... amazing since the sole reason the "sold" the use of ATM's to the American public was because of all the money they would save by elimination of tellers and no fee's would ever be necessary. (Quote from 5th/3rd's commercials and advertising).
 
Very soon banks will realize that the only way they can survive is by increasing the returns on savings, and I mean a lot, effectively becoming hedge funds for the mass. Otherwise, current rates can't even beat the inflation, so who the f. needs them then?
 
Very soon banks will realize that the only way they can survive is by increasing the returns on savings, and I mean a lot, effectively becoming hedge funds for the mass. Otherwise, current rates can't even beat the inflation, so who the f. needs them then?
Just get the Fed to raise interest rates
 
I have to say this is a global issue, they all promise more jobs but actually the RISE of automated industry is enormous.
Politicians allways say that they make more jobs and use it to gain votes, but people have to wake up.
Every company is lowering on labor they want robots todo the job, they never whine about larger pay, they never get tired, they only need 1 guy to keep them running or maybe once a month 2 guys for an hour, they never whine about free time, they never say a thing, they cost much less than any labour and work till they die.
So start to use your brains people, we are living in a automated era. Since the industrial revolution the factories are searching for less people and now it came so far that people are kinda not needed anymore.
Look at the factories bragging that they got the most effective production lines, I actually use allways the car industry as example before the robots entered the car industry we had welders, painters, metal workers and loads of delivery factories nowadays they even am proud to show production lines completely done by robotic machines. In our country we have remnants of the volvo car industry which had thousands of people working at cars, now only 400 are left untill the factory closes, which will probably happen sooner than later.
I never forget my visit to a italian washing machine factory it is a massive one which is as big as a whole village when I came back 10 years later the 23000 people working there are gone whats left is 150 people on the office and a few doing maintenance in the fully robotic factory. Hell even the loading of trucs is done by robots these days the trucks drive in and gets loaded and drive out. The whole massive warehouse is all robots. real people are not allowed besides the guy who does the maintenance.
And yes farming is showing the exact same problem. people are less needed everywhere every industry is searching for more robots or larger machines which can replace labout in every way.
And yes they will brag about it , you just have to see the how do they do it programs.

PEOPLE are no longer needed, learn to live with that fact.
 
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