Barclays Cuts 5% of Its Staff in a Profitable Quarter
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Barclays says it will cut about 5,000 jobs this year, roughly 5% of its workforce, as it leans on technology to lower costs. Reuters described the plan as an AI-powered cost-cutting drive. The news came with the bank’s third-quarter earnings today.
About 60% of the cuts will hit support functions, including developers, CFO Anna Cross told reporters. 1,000 roles are already gone, and the rest will be cut by the end of the year. Barclays also took another £201 million in “structural cost actions” in the quarter.
The profit numbers matter for context. Pretax profit rose 12% to £2.3 billion ($3.08 billion), up from £2.1 billion a year ago, but it came in below what analysts expected because fixed income trading had a weak quarter. Fixed income trading income fell 19% to £1 billion, against the £1.3 billion analysts expected, while equities revenue rose 47%. CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan said, “I am disappointed, and you can be sure this will get my attention.”
The detail I’d pay attention to is the 60%. Barclays is telling us most of these cuts land in support functions, and its CFO named developers as one example. A bank can’t pin that on a bad quarter. Profit grew, and Barclays still cut 5% of its staff, so the cuts are about the cost structure going forward. Every large employer’s CFO is reading the report the same way.
Two limits on what the report shows. The Reuters story doesn’t say which countries or business units take the cuts, and it doesn’t quote a Barclays executive naming AI as the cause, so the AI framing comes from Reuters. The pattern fits what I’ve covered elsewhere: Kroger’s plan to cut about 3,000 corporate jobs and the Amazon and HubSpot cuts both leaned on technology and structure to explain headcount decisions.
For anyone in a support role at a large company, the takeaway is practical. Learn the AI tools your team is adopting before someone else decides how your job gets redesigned around them. People who know how to use those tools are in a much stronger position when the restructuring conversation starts.
If you’re hiring developers or support staff, talk to us about hiring and we’ll help you find experienced candidates. And if you’re affected, see what’s open right now.
Only 41% of Workers Have a Quality Job, and the Gap Shows Up in Who Leaves
Gallup released the second year of its American Job Quality Study, with Jobs for the Future and The Families and Workers Fund, and the headline number barely moved. 41% of U.S. workers have what Gallup calls a quality job, compared with 40% last year. To count, a role has to meet a minimum standard in 5 areas: financial well-being, workplace culture and safety, growth and development, agency and voice, and work structure and autonomy.
Gallup surveyed 17,874 employed adults aged 18 to 75 between January 26 and March 24, 2026. More than 11,000 of them answered both years, so Gallup could see who changed employers. Workers in non-quality jobs in 2025 were nearly twice as likely to be at a different employer a year later, 15% versus 8%, according to Gallup’s report.
People in non-quality jobs have 3.4 times the odds of planning to leave. Workplace culture and safety were the strongest predictor at 3.1 times, ahead of growth at 2.5 times and pay and financial security at 2.0 times. Among employees mistreated by a supervisor, 27% say they’re very likely to leave within a year, compared with 21% for mistreatment by coworkers and 19% by customers. Gallup also reports that 1 in 4 employees report discrimination or unfair treatment.
Where you work and what you do matter. 52% of managers have quality jobs, compared with 36% of individual contributors. Professional and business services have the highest rate at 57%, and warehousing (22%) and retail (23%) have the lowest. Construction jumped from 45% to 55%, the only big move. Only 32% of Gen Z employees have quality jobs, and 23% switched employers in the past year.
On AI, 28% of employees use it at least weekly and 54% have never used it at work. 52% of weekly users have quality jobs, compared with 32% of people who never use it, and 31% of users say their employer gave them more responsibilities after they started. Gallup cautions that the link is an association only, since many regular users likely had good jobs before they started using AI.
Gallup estimates employees in quality jobs miss about 15% fewer workdays to illness or injury and cost about 16% less in private-insurance healthcare spending ($5,200 versus $6,200). It also cites a separate study that puts replacement costs at about 40% of salary for frontline workers, about 80% for technical professionals, and about 200% for managers and leaders.
The retention number is the one I care about most. Gallup tracked the same 11,000-plus workers for a full year, and the people in jobs below the standard left at nearly twice the rate of everyone else. If you’ve filled the same seat three times in two years, this data describes your problem.
Look at the order of the reasons people want to leave. Culture and safety predicted it more strongly than pay did, and 27% of people mistreated by a supervisor plan to leave within a year. People often tell a recruiter they’re leaving for money, and Gallup’s data suggests the manager matters at least as much. Among employees who strongly disagree that they’re treated with respect, 32% are very likely to leave within a year. Among those who strongly agree, it’s 9%. If you manage people, start with respect.
The AI section deserves a close read too. AI use is more common in the better jobs typically held by college graduates, so it is concentrated among people who were already doing well. And 31% of users say their employer gave them more work once they started using it. For a lot of people, the payoff for working faster has been a heavier workload.
Gallup sells survey and analytics products, and several of the report’s figures come from the full report and not the public summary, so I’d treat the specific odds and percentages as directional. The pattern still lines up with other data I’ve covered, including Monster’s finding that 90% of workers see loyalty as a one-way street. If your turnover looks like this and you want help building a retention-minded hiring process, explore our staffing services.
Staffing your team doesn’t have to be hard.
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EA Is Betting on Fewer, Bigger Games, and the Studios Outside the Bet Are Closing
Electronic Arts, the company behind EA Sports, Battlefield, and Apex Legends, is cutting about 400 jobs, around 3% of its workforce, according to Bloomberg. Bloomberg reported that about 50 of the cuts are at BioWare, the studio behind Mass Effect, which is closing. BioWare confirmed the shutdown on social media.
The next Mass Effect game won’t move forward. Development on a Sims project called Project Lotus is paused, and EA is reducing the team working on Skate. EA says it is still investing in EA Sports, Battlefield, Apex Legends, Star Wars Jedi, and Marvel’s Iron Man. In a memo to employees, the company said it reviewed “our business, how we operate, and what it will take to lead in this next era of interactive entertainment.”
EA’s public announcement didn’t give a total job count or a breakdown by studio, so the 400 and 50 come from Bloomberg through Newsweek, which calls this a developing story. Treat the numbers as preliminary.
EA is placing fewer, bigger bets, and the people on the smaller bets are the ones losing their jobs. A whole studio is closing, and two other projects are paused or shrinking, so these cuts follow the work EA chose to drop.
I see the same pattern well outside gaming. When a company narrows its focus, it cuts whole teams tied to the projects it drops, and those people often have skills that transfer well to other employers. If you’re a developer, artist, or producer coming out of a cut like this, your portfolio of shipped work is your strongest asset, so lead with it. EA explained the cuts as a strategy decision, and the article doesn’t mention AI as a factor, a useful contrast with Barclays today.
Jobless Claims Fall to 194,000 While Continuing Claims Climb
The Labor Department’s weekly count of people filing for unemployment fell. New claims dropped 6,000 to 194,000 for the week ending October 17, the lowest since July 18. A year ago the number was 231,000, so claims are about 16% lower. The prior week was revised up to 200,000.
The 4-week average, which smooths out weekly noise, dipped to 197,750, the lowest reading in the past 12 months of DOL data. Continuing claims went the other way. The number of people still collecting benefits rose 25,000 to 1,728,000 for the week ending October 10, the highest since late August, and the prior week was revised down from 1,710,000 to 1,703,000. The insured unemployment rate held at 1.1%, and continuing claims were 1,947,000 a year ago.
Ohio (+3,918) and Tennessee (+3,477) had the biggest jumps in the week ending October 10, and both states blamed layoffs in manufacturing. Tennessee also cited educational services. Both states’ claims dropped sharply the following week in the advance numbers, with Ohio down 4,493 and Tennessee down 2,642. Michigan’s advance claims rose 1,988, the largest increase of any state. For the week ending October 3, New Jersey had the highest insured unemployment rate at 2.0%, followed by Washington at 1.8%.
Layoffs are still about as low as they’ve been all year. The continuing claims number is the one I’d watch. A jump of 25,000 in one week could easily be noise. If it keeps climbing, it would mean people who lose a job are taking longer to find the next one.
The Ohio and Tennessee spikes look like one-time events, since both states reported manufacturing layoffs and both reversed the following week. Michigan, also a manufacturing state, is the one to check when next week’s numbers come out.
