Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski recently told Bloomberg TV that the company essentially stopped hiring a year ago, and that generative AI helped make this large-scale layoff possible. Ta.
However, despite Siemiatkowski's bullishness on AI, the company is increasing the number of retiring human workers, as evidenced by public job postings targeting more humans and the company's own statements. It does not rely entirely on AI to replace people.
“We stopped hiring about a year ago. We were at 4,500 people and now we're at 3,500,” Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg TV. “We have natural attrition; [does] Any technology company. Employees have been with the company for approximately five years, with 20% retiring each year. By not hiring, we are only shrinking our company. ”
The company's CEO also said he believes AI can effectively replace workers. “I think AI can already do all the jobs that we humans do,” Siemiatkowski said. “We will make some improvements [from] AI accelerates employee pay increases and improves efficiency. ”
Siemiatkowski often makes various comments like this. At the start of 2024, Klarna CEO said ChatGPT is doing the work of 700 human employees. At another point, he said Klarna would discontinue Salesforce as its CRM provider and replace it with AI, a comment that Marc Benioff expressed skepticism about. Just this week, Klarna CEO created an AI deepfake of himself for an earnings call, trying to prove that even CEOs can be replaced by AI.
But in reality, while Klarna cut its workforce significantly last year, the buy now, pay later company hasn't stopped hiring entirely.
Klarna is currently hiring for more than 50 positions around the world, according to its website's jobs page. Additionally, Klarna managers say they are actively hiring or expanding their team at least six times throughout 2024, according to a LinkedIn post seen by TechCrunch. Last year, Klarna hired several new employees to fill roles in its policy, software engineering, and global partnerships teams, according to a LinkedIn post by a recently hired Klarna employee.
John Klaske, Klarna's global press leader, told TechCrunch that while Siemiatkowski's comments about hiring are the right direction, the CEO “simplified it for the sake of brevity in a broadcast interview.” Ta.
“Historically, from 2019 to 2022, we employed between 1,000 and 1,500 people per year,” Craske said in an email. “Currently, we are not actively recruiting to expand our workforce and are only filling a few critical roles, primarily engineering.”
In other words, not every job can be replaced by AI today.
While AI may be enabling Klarna to do more work with fewer people, it's worth noting that Klarna's current headcount is the same as in 2021. Like most technology companies, Klarna was hiring heavily during the pandemic. Many companies, including Meta and Amazon, have reduced their workforces in recent years through hiring slowdowns and layoffs.
It's also worth pointing out that Klarna is considering an IPO in the near future. Siemiatkowski may be trying to convince investors that his company is actively incorporating generative AI into its workflows, and that the benefits are already being seen.
However, most companies these days have adopted and implemented AI much more slowly.