The German bank employs about 100,000 people and is in the middle of a five-year restructuring plan. Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan said a “big number” of employees will eventually lose their jobs as technology makes their roles obsolete, according to the Financial Times (paywall).
At a “Banking in Transition” conference in Frankfurt today, Cryan noted that some employees—like accountants who “spend a lot of the time basically being an abacus”—will have to find new things to do, according to the FT. “In our banks we have people behaving like robots doing mechanical things, tomorrow we’re going to have robots behaving like people,” Cryan said. How many and what kind of jobs will be replaced by automation is one of the big debates of our time. Some projections seem dire: About 7.1 million jobs, with two-thirds of them in office and administration, will be lost because of labor market changes in coming years, according to the World Economic Forum. Yet some economists suggest that automation can actually increase employment in the industries it transforms.
