Intesa’s Digitalization and ‘Generational Shift’ Will Eliminate Thousands of Jobs

The Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo has announced that as part of its digitalization and increased use of artificial intelligence, it plans to eliminate thousands of jobs by sending workers into early retirement and offering incentives for job changes, without replacement.

The Italian lender has outlined the departure of 9,000 employees by 2027, including seven thousand in its home country of Italy and two thousand in foreign branches, according to a statement released on Wednesday.

The program for foreign branches anticipates job eliminations exclusively in key functions and will not affect employees of subsidiaries, emphasized the owner of Privredna banka Zagreb.

By reducing the number of jobs, the bank aims to accelerate the “generational shift in the context of technological transformation” and build a “resilient” business model that will include digitalization and artificial intelligence, Intesa explains.

By June 2028, they plan to hire 3,500 “young people,” of which 1,500 will be engaged in increasing product sales in the asset management and insurance segment within Intesa’s branch network.

In the fourth quarter, the Italian lender announced net costs of around 350 million euros for financing the voluntary departure of workers, which will not affect the estimate of 8.5 billion euros in net profit for this year.

From 2028, the program is expected to reduce employee costs by 500 million euros annually.

On Wednesday, management reached an agreement with a group of Italian unions on financing the early retirement program for 4,000 employees.

– Today’s agreement has provided the first responses to help workers in the process of digital transformation that will fundamentally change banking in the coming years – said Paolo Citterio, representative of the banking union FABI within the Intesa group.

The program builds on the business strategy for the period from 2023 to 2025, which anticipates the departure of 9,200 workers by the end of March next year and the hiring of 4,600 new workers by the end of December.