Former Cabinet minister Darren Jones, the Labour MP for Bristol North West, has renewed his warning that artificial intelligence could remove jobs rather than enhance them, after HSBC was reported to be planning sweeping cuts across its UK wealth management business as part of an AI-driven restructuring.
According to the Financial Times, the bank plans to cut around 70 per cent of financial adviser roles in its UK wealth division and about half of management and specialist positions, with some teams expected to disappear entirely.
Jones said: “I keep raising the alarm bell about AI removing jobs, instead of enhancing them; and companies improving profits but workers losing their wages.”
He added: “We have to shape AI in the interests of workers and the UK economy and not just wait to see what happens — these changes are coming whether we like it or not.”
HSBC cuts sharpen debate over AI and employment
The planned reductions come as HSBC accelerates its use of artificial intelligence across wealth management and other parts of the bank.
Chief executive Georges Elhedery has made AI and management simplification central to his strategy, with the bank looking to use technology to improve efficiency and offer more personalised services to customers.
HSBC is reported to have entered a consultation period, with affected staff potentially leaving by the end of October. The bank has said it remains committed to delivering a high-quality, digitally enabled wealth service.
Jones: ‘pro-tech and pro-worker’
Jones said the answer was not to resist technological development but to make sure workers share in its benefits. “We need to be both pro-tech and pro-worker,” he said.
He warned that large-scale displacement without enough alternative employment could have consequences well beyond individual workplaces: “If too many workers lose their jobs and are unable to find alternative work to maintain their lifestyles we’ll have very serious societal problems to deal with.”
A mixed picture in the jobs market
The HSBC restructuring is a concrete example of the kind of change Jones has been warning about.
At the same time, the wider UK labour market is showing signs of recovery. A KPMG and Recruitment and Employment Confederation survey published this week found permanent placements rising at their fastest rate in four years, even as demand remained weak in some sectors.
That mixed picture underlines the challenge for policymakers: AI could drive productivity and create new areas of employment while reducing headcounts in occupations that can increasingly be automated.
From AI safety to AI jobs
The Government has placed heavy emphasis on Britain becoming a leading AI economy, but Jones argues that the political debate cannot stop at investment, innovation and safety.
His intervention focuses on who gains economically from AI adoption, and what protections are needed if companies can raise productivity and profits while employing fewer people.
For Jones, the central challenge is to shape technological change before disruption becomes widespread, so that AI enhances workers’ jobs and wages rather than simply replacing them.
