Jobs at risk?

ING, the Dutch bank spends $1 billion per annum on its 5800 employees? Apparently that’s how it is and to save this cost, it is sacking these 5800 people and replacing them with machines and this is to cost it $2 billion. Do we call this smart? And this is after the bank was a recipient of a $10 billion bailout from the Govt in 2008.

The Bank is undertaking a digital transformation, wherein over the next five years, it will bring in technology that will standardize its infrastructure, data, and other processes.

A few days before ING, Germany’s Commerzbank announced that by 2020 it will digitize and automate 80% of its processes. It will be cutting 9,600 full-time jobs, at a cost of €1.1 billion.

Yes, digitization is currently the biggest worry in the banking sector. There are many reports which suggest that 10% of the jobs could get eaten away by machines and in the banks, jobs which are routine and run on rote, like teller could are at high risk of becoming redundant.

It would take a long while for this wind to blow into our country or maybe never because we do not have this kind of money and plenty of people who can be employed.